Emma Albani
Dame Emma Albani DBE , b. Marie-Louise-Emma-Cécile Lajeunesse (born November 1, 1847 in Chambly , Québec , † April 3, 1930 in London ) was a Canadian opera singer ( soprano ).
Life
Albani received her first music lessons from her father Joseph Lajeunesse , who was a professional musician. She spent the period from 1858 to 1865 in the convent of the Dames du Sacré-Coeur in Montreal, where Charles-Gustave Smith was one of her teachers. In 1865 she moved to Albany with her father and sister Cornélia (the mother had died in 1856), where she became principal soprano in the choir, organist and choirmaster at St. Joseph's Church .
In 1868 she went to Paris and studied at the Conservatory with Gilbert-Louis Duprez . In the same year she traveled on to Italy and took lessons with Francesco Lamperti . Her career as an opera singer also began in Italy. In the 1869–70 season she had an engagement in Messina, where she sang the Oscar in Giuseppe Verdi's A Masked Ball , Amina in Vincenzo Bellini's La sonnambula and Alina in Gaetano Donizetti's Alina, regina di Golconda .
After successes in Milan, Florence and Malta, she received an engagement at the Royal Opera House in 1871 , where she made her debut in 1872, again as Amina in Bellini's La Sonnambula with Victor Capoul as her fiancé Elvino . She stayed connected to the house until 1891 and sang here a. a. Ophelia in Ambroise Thomas ' Hamlet , the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and the title roles in Verdi's Lucia di Lammermoor and Linda di Chamounix and Friedrich von Flotow's Martha . She also performed in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in 1873 and in New York in 1874, where she sang her first Wagner opera with Elsa from Lohengrin . Also in 1874 she gave a private concert in front of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle .
Over the years she expanded her repertoire more and more: she played the Lady Harriet in Flotows Martha , the Juliette in Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette , the Inès in Giacomo Meyerbeer's L'Africaine , the Ophélie Hamlet and the title role in Mignon by Ambroise Thomas as well Eva in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg , Senta in The Flying Dutchman , Elisabeth in Tannhauser and Isolde in Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner.
Flotow composed the opera Alma l'incantatrice for her in 1878 , and Charles Gounod composed the oratorio Mors et vita in 1885 . She also showed herself to be an outstanding oratorio and concert singer in Franz Liszt's Legend of St. Elisabeth and Johannes Brahm's German Requiem . From 1876 she worked with her sister Cornélia as a piano accompanist. In 1878 she married Ernest Gye , who was director of the Royal Opera until 1885 and she looked after as impresario.
In 1880 Albani performed at La Scala in Milan, in 1883 she and Adelina Patti went on a concert tour with the impresario James Henry Mapleson through the USA, which took them to Chicago, Washington, Baltimore and New York. In the same year she visited her homeland Canada for the first time and performed in Montreal with the violinist Alfred De Sève . In the 1890s she worked with musicians such as the brothers Jean and Édouard de Reszke , Pablo de Sarasate and Ignacy Jan Paderewski . In 1896 she said goodbye to the opera stage at the Royal Opera House in the role of Valentine in Meyerbeer's Die Huguenots .
Albani continued to be active as a concert singer: she toured South Africa (1898, 1899, 1904), Australia (1898, 1907), Ceylon (1907), India (1907) and New Zealand (1907) and performed with the young singer in Canada in 1906 Eva Gauthier up. Her final years were marred by financial troubles, with the UK government giving her an annual pension of £ 100, and singing Nellie Melba in Australia and the La Presse newspaper in Montreal giving her benefit concerts. In 1925 Albani was ennobled as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire .
literature
- A. Ehrlich (= pseudonym of Albert H. Payne): Famous singers of the past and present. A collection of 91 biographies and 90 portraits . Leipzig 1895, pp. 3–5 ( digitized version )
Web links
- Emma Albani at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Library an Archives Canada - The Virtual Gramophone - Emma Albani
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography - Lajeunesse, Emma
- Soprano Central - Dame Emma Albani
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Albani, Emma |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lajeunesse, Marie-Louise-Emma-Cécile (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian opera singer (soprano) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 1, 1847 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chambly , Quebec |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 3, 1930 |
| Place of death | London |