Editing Julie Andrews (section)

== Vocal styling ==
{{listen
| filename = Loch_Lomond_(1972)_-_Julie_Andrews.ogg
| title = "Loch Lomond"
| pos = right
| description = A live recording of Andrews singing "[[The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond]]" with choral backing in 1972.}}

Once termed "Britain's youngest [[prima donna]]",<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wong |first=Tim |date=26 May 2014 |title=Julie Andrews, the operatic sensation that never was |work=The Telegraph |url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/timwong/100075040/julie-andrews-the-operatic-sensation-that-never-was/ |url-status=dead |access-date=22 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140529065837/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/timwong/100075040/julie-andrews-the-operatic-sensation-that-never-was/ |archive-date=29 May 2014 |quote=You might not know this – though I'm sure diehard fans will – but Dame Julie Andrews started out in opera. In fact she was once billed as "Britain's Youngest Prima Donna".}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Connor |first=John J. |date=25 October 1995 |title=TELEVISION REVIEW; Julie Andrews, With Tough Edges |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/25/theater/television-review-julie-andrews-with-tough-edges.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826121510/http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/25/theater/television-review-julie-andrews-with-tough-edges.html |archive-date=26 August 2014 |access-date=23 August 2014 |website=The New York Times}}</ref> Andrews's classically trained [[soprano]] voice has been described as light, bright and operatic in tone and praised for its "pure and clear" sound.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013 |title=The Broadway soprano: the lineage and evolution from Julie Andrews to Kristin Chenoweth. |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Broadway+soprano%3A+the+lineage+and+evolution+from+Julie+Andrews+to...-a0326505018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826115240/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Broadway+soprano%3A+the+lineage+and+evolution+from+Julie+Andrews+to...-a0326505018 |archive-date=26 August 2014 |access-date=23 August 2014 |website=TheFreeLibrary.com |publisher=Farlex, Inc.}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=6 June 2014 |title=Julie Andrews honoured in Gstaad |url=http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/julie-andrews-honoured-in-gstaad/38738266 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722082439/http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/julie-andrews-honoured-in-gstaad/38738266 |archive-date=22 July 2014 |access-date=23 August 2014 |website=Swissinfo}}</ref> When she was young, a [[ENT specialist|throat specialist]] examined her and determined that she had "an almost adult [[larynx]]".<ref name=":0" /> Despite her voice teacher's, soprano [[Lilian Stiles-Allen]], encouragement to pursue opera, Andrews felt that her voice was unsuited for the genre and "too big a stretch". At the time, she described her own voice as "extremely high and thin", feeling that it lacked "the necessary guts and weight for opera", preferring musical theatre instead.<ref>Andrews (2008), pp. 52-53</ref>

Over the years, her voice naturally deepened. Losing her vast upper register, her "top notes" became increasingly difficult to sing while "her middle register matured into the warm golden tone" for which she has become known, according to Tim Wong of ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Wong |first=Tim |date=26 May 2014 |title=Julie Andrews, the operatic sensation that never was |url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/timwong/100075040/julie-andrews-the-operatic-sensation-that-never-was/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306122658/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/timwong/100075040/julie-andrews-the-operatic-sensation-that-never-was/ |archive-date=6 March 2016 |access-date=23 August 2014 |website=The Daily Telegraphy |publisher=Telegraph Media Group Limited}}</ref> Musically, she had always preferred singing music that was "bright and sunny", choosing to avoid songs that were sad or otherwise written in a minor key, for fear of losing her voice "in a mess of emotion". She cited this as another reason for avoiding opera.<ref name=":0" />

=== Loss of singing voice ===
Andrews was forced to quit the ''Victor/Victoria'' stage production towards the end of the Broadway run in 1997, when she developed hoarseness in her voice. [[Liza Minnelli]] was the replacement. She underwent surgery at New York's [[Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan)|Mount Sinai Hospital]], reportedly to remove non-cancerous [[Vocal fold nodule|nodules]] from her throat,<ref name="BBC" /> although she later stated the hoarseness was due to "a certain kind of muscular striation [that] happens on the vocal cords"—itself the result of a strain from ''Victor/Victoria'' (she added "I didn't have cancer, I didn't have nodules, I didn't have anything").<ref>{{Cite episode |title=The Sound of Music Reunion |series=[[The Oprah Winfrey Show]] |date=28 October 2010 |season=25}}</ref> 

Andrews emerged from the surgery with permanent damage that destroyed the purity of her singing and made her speaking voice raspy. In 1999, she filed a malpractice suit against the doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital, including Scott Kessler and Jeffrey Libin, who had operated on her throat. The doctors had assured Andrews that she should regain her voice within six weeks, but Andrews's stepdaughter, [[Jennifer Edwards]], said in 1999, "It's been two years, and [her singing voice] still hasn't returned."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Andrews sues over lost voice |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/565852.stm |date=15 December 1999 |access-date=29 January 2007 |website=BBC News |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080309045553/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/565852.stm |archive-date=9 March 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref> The lawsuit was settled in September 2000 for an undisclosed amount.<ref>[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4559061.html Julie Andrews settles lawsuit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103043959/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4559061.html|date=3 November 2012}}, ''Chicago Sun-Times'', 9 September 2000</ref>

{{Blockquote|Andrews admits that she has never recovered from the botched attempt to remove nodules from her vocal cords back in 1997. Her famous, four-octave soprano was then reduced to a fragile alto – she was quoted at the time as saying "I can sing the hell out of '[[Ol' Man River|Old Man River]].'" <ref name="Paget">Paget, Clive: [http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/331829,julie-andrews-to-tour-australia.aspx Julie Andrews to tour Australia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504014129/http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/331829,julie-andrews-to-tour-australia.aspx |date=4 May 2013}} at ''[[Limelight (magazine)|Limelight]]'', 18 May 2013</ref>}}

After 2000, [[Steven M. Zeitels]], director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, operated on her four times and, while able to improve her speaking voice, was unable to restore her singing.<ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine |last=Colapinto |first=John |author-link=John Colapinto |date=4 March 2013 |title=Giving Voice : A Surgeon Pioneers Methods to Help Singers Sing Again |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |page=56}}</ref>