Amy Sherwin
Frances Amy Lilian Sherwin (born March 23, 1855 in Huonville / Tasmania , † September 20, 1935 ) was an Australian opera singer (soprano).
Life
Sherwin received singing and piano lessons from her mother and occasionally appeared at amateur performances. She received her first professional lessons from William Russell and Frederick Augustus Packer , an organist and composer from Hobart. By chance she was discovered by members of William Saurin Lyster's Royal Italian Opera on a concert tour through Tasmania in 1878 and persuaded to appear with them as Norina in a production of Don Pasquale at the Theater Royal in Hobart.
After the success of this debut, she traveled to Melbourne with the opera company and celebrated triumphs there as the "Tasmanian Nightingale". In 1879 she separated from Lyster's opera company and traveled to America with her husband and manager Hugo Gorlitz . With Max Strakosch's opera troupe she sang Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata in San Francisco and performed in New York and Boston, where she continued to perfect her vocal training.
From 1882 to 1883 she toured Italy and France, the following year she made her debut at the Theater Royal Drury Lane in London with the Carl Rosa Opera Company . After traveling through the USA and Canada, she returned to Australia in 1887, where she a. a. participated as a singer in the Queen's Jubilee Celebration Concert in Melbourne and performed in Tasmania. 1888-89 she went on a concert tour through Asia, which she a. a. to Calcutta, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe, Nagasaki, Yokohama and Tokyo.
After that she lived and worked in Europe for five years. A new concert tour took her to South Africa in 1896, after which she performed again in Australia and New Zealand. In 1898 she gave her farewell concerts at Hobart Town Hall and settled in England. In 1908 she finally retired from the stage.
Sherwin had already started teaching beforehand; Her best-known student was the Scottish baritone Fraser Gange , who accompanied her to Australia from 1907-08. After separating from her husband, Sherwin became impoverished during the First World War and was largely forgotten. When she was hospitalized at Charing Cross Hospital in London in 1934 , the Mayor of Hobart, Tasmania, organized a fundraiser for her. Her letter of thanks appeared in the Mercury on September 7, 1934 . At her funeral, the Tasmanian government sent a wreath with the inscription A tribute to the memory of a famous Tasmanian, from the Government of Tasmania .
Web links
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- Australian Dictionary of Biography - Sherwin, Frances Amy Lillian (1855-1935)
- Tasmania Department of Premier and Cabinet - Amy Sherwin (1855-1935) A Soprano who became known as the Tasmanian Nightingal
- The Companion to Tasmanian History - Amy Sherwin
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sherwin, Amy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sherwin, Frances Amy Lilian (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian opera singer (soprano) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 23, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Huonville , Tasmania |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 20, 1935 |