Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica , actually Lillian Allen Norton ( December 12, 1857 in Farmington , Maine - May 10, 1914 in Jakarta , Java ) was an American opera ( soprano ) singer .
Life
Although this artist is mainly celebrated as an English prima donna, she has sung too often in German to be able to ignore it here entirely. She received her first musical lessons at the New England Conservatory in Boston from Professor John O'Neill . Trained, she first appeared in public at the oratorios of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society .
In the same year, 1877, she came to London as a soloist with Patrick S. Gilmore's chapel . She liked it, but felt that her voice needed further study, so she went to San Giovanni in Milan. It was there that she tried her hand at the boards for the first time, as “Brescia” in “Traviata” (1879).
This debut was so cheap that she immediately went on guest tours. First she appeared in Russia, where they won to 1882 major successes (especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow), then she sang for several years in Paris, in 1886 she appeared as a "Traviata" in London, from where they will tour with Adelina Patti to America was invited.
At the beginning of the 1890s she was also welcomed in Germany. After she had shown her abundant skills in the concert hall, she also dared to go on the boards. The artist's work was also noticed in Bayreuth and invited there in 1894 to make "Elsa" in "Lohengrin" heard. The successes that she achieved there determined her to continue to occupy herself with Wagner's roles, and since that time she has become a popular actress, especially in England. After Nordica had been a member of the Damrosch Opera in America for several years , she was a member of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York from 1900, but also appeared repeatedly in Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, California etc.
From 1891 to 1910 she sang 19 roles in 194 performances over eleven seasons at the Metropolitan Opera New York.
In 1913 she ended her stage career at the Boston Opera. In 1913 she gave a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York . With that she started a farewell tour around the world.
The Taskin shipwrecked off New Guinea . She fell ill with pneumonia and was taken to an Australian hospital. She left this in April 1914 to seek better medical care in Batavia, but died soon after her arrival.
She was cremated and her ashes were then buried in a secret location. Her ashes are now in Bayview - New York Bay Cemetery .
She was married three times: in 1883 she married Frederick A. Gower, who was killed in a balloon crash over the English Channel in 1885. In 1896 she married the Hungarian baritone Zoltán Döhme (1869–1933), from whom she soon divorced. A third marriage in 1909 with the London banker George W. Young also failed.
Fonts
- Lillian Nordica's Hints To Singers . Transcribed by William Armstrong. EP Dutton And Company, 1923, p. 5 - Internet Archive
literature
- Ludwig Eisenberg : Lillian Nordica . In: Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century. Paul List, Leipzig 1903, p. 731 ( daten.digitale-sammlungen.de ).
- A talk with Lillian Nordica . In: Mabel Wagnalls: Stars of the opera, a description of operas & a series of personal interviews . Funk & Wagnalls, New York 1909, p. 171 - Internet Archive
Web links
- Lillian Nordica at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Lillian Nordica Nordica Memorial Association and Nordica Homestead Museum, Farmington, Maine (English)
- Lillian Nordica CD with recordings of her voice (English)
- Lillian Nordica on the Maine Memory Network (English)
- Lillian Nordica in the database of Find a Grave (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nordica, Lillian |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Norton, Lillian Allen (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American opera singer (soprano) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1857 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Farmington , Maine |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 10, 1914 |
| Place of death | Jakarta , Java |