Marcella Sembrich

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Marcella Sembrich
Memorial plaque for Marcelina Sembrich-Kochańska in Wroclaw

Marcelina Sembrich-Kochańska also known as Marcella Sembrich (born February 15, 1858 in Wisniesczyk ; † January 11, 1935 in New York ; actually Prakseda Marcelina Kochánska ) was a Polish singer and pianist .

She was considered one of the best coloratura sopranos of her time. She had engagements at opera and concert halls around the world and celebrated triumphant successes.

Life

Marcella Sembrich received piano lessons from her father when she was four and violin lessons when she was six. However, her outstanding, versatile musical talent was soon recognized and promoted. At the age of eleven she came to the Conservatory in Lwow , where she studied piano with Wilhelm Stengel, her future husband and manager, as well as violin and harmony for four years. At the age of 16 she went to Vienna to study piano with Julius Epstein .

In 1876, however, she gave up these instruments and concentrated entirely on training her singing voice. She studied in Milan with Giovanni Battista Lamperti and his father Francesco Lamperti and made her debut in Athens in 1877 as Elvira in I puritani . After taking on numerous other roles in Athens, she moved to the Vienna Opera, but had to interrupt her career because of the birth of her first son, Wilhelm Marcel Stengel. In Vienna she studied with Richard Levy .

From 1878 to 1880 she worked at the Dresden Opera . Numerous concerts and guest performances followed worldwide in which she celebrated triumphs. B. as Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor in London , in Saint Petersburg (1880–82), Moscow (1881/1882) or at the Teatro Real Madrid (1882). In 1883 she moved to New York to the newly opened Metropolitan Opera , to whose ensemble she belonged until she retired from the stage and in which she sang a total of 25 roles in 253 performances, plus 185 performances on the ensemble's annual US tour. Guest appearances in Saint Petersburg, for example, fall during this time. She sang at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon (1885), at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels (1887), appeared at the State Opera in Budapest (1887) and in Monte Carlo (1893–94). In 1884 she had sensational success in the concert hall in Paris , and in 1897 on a US tour. Her homage was paid in Milan , Berlin and Vienna, Stockholm and Brussels. Johann Strauss (son) wrote a new version of his Spring Voices waltz for coloratura soprano for her. At the end of the 1880s she spent a year at the Frankfurt Opera. M. as a guest, where she was extremely popular.

After retiring from the stage, Marcella Sembrich taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at New York's Juilliard School from 1924 . Her many students included Dusolina Giannini , Alma Gluck , Hulda Lashanska and Queena Mario .

Contemporary reception

“Just as spring breaks the ice of winter, and hearts are set to blissful joy, so the singing of this God-gifted woman is unprecedented today: spring-like, blissful, carried by the purest grace; the S. never forces the voice. There is a good feeling in it that you cannot blame anyone for getting into raptures. Now the little woman stands in front of us, covered in diamonds, “she has a fortune on her neck”. But if one subtracts all splendor, one judges only the voice: there is no more heavenly sound. Our time is not short of greats. But it is poor in simple, obvious beauty. The S. sings sunbeams. "

- Ludwig Hartmann : In: Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Published by Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 958 f.

aftermath

The Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing in New York houses numerous memorabilia of the great singer.

In Theodor Fontane's story Mathilde Möhring , set at the end of the 19th century, she is a topic of conversation among the main characters.

The Kosciuzko Foundation in New York is organizing the Marcella Sembrich Voice Competition , the first prize of which is worth US $ 8,000.

Web links

Commons : Marcella Sembrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . KG Saur 1997-2000, p. 22380
  2. ^ ZVAB: Lewy, Richard, French horn virtuoso and composer (1827-1883). , accessed October 26, 2016
  3. ^ Text archive - Internet Archive
personal data
SURNAME Sembrich, Marcella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kochánska, Prakseda Marcelina (maiden name); Kochánska, Marzelina; Sembrich-Kochánska, Marcelina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Wisniesczyk
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1935
Place of death new York