Marie Brema
Marie Brema , née Mary Agnes Fehrmann or Minnie Fehrmann ( February 28, 1856 in Liverpool - March 22, 1925 in Manchester ) was a German-English opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ) and stage actress .
Life
Marie Brema was born in England as the daughter of the German John Fehrmann (from Bremen ) and the American Cora Wooster Jarvis. She grew up among music and art enthusiasts and also sang as a dilettante, but showed no interest in becoming a professional singer herself until her wedding in 1874 to Arthur Frederick Braun.
In 1890 she took her first singing lessons from George Henschel , which lasted three months. She then made her debut as a concert singer at St. James's Hall in London.
She then took acting lessons for six weeks and made her Oxford debut in 1891 as Adriana Lecouvreur . Actually, she only wanted to act, but she received so many concert invitations that she began to sing again. Allfred Blume took on her further training .
On October 10, 1891, she appeared for the first time as Maria Brema (she had chosen the name because of her father's birthplace, Bremen). She made her debut as "Lola" in the English production of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the Shaftesbury Theater in London.
This success was followed by a major one in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in the same year.
Cosima Wagner was made aware of her by Hermann Levi and so she was invited to the Bayreuth Festival , where she sang “Ortrud” in Lohengrin and “Kundry” in Parsifal .
In 1894 she went on tour with the Walter Damrosch Company as a Wagner interpreter through the USA. Back in Europe she performed again in Bayreuth.
Marie Brema, Edward Lloyd and Harry Plunket Greene were the vocal soloists at the world premiere of The Dream of Gerontius on October 3, 1900 at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival under the direction of Hans Richter in the Birmingham Town Hall .
From 1910 to 1911 she directed an opera season at the Savoy Theater . In 1912 she went on a farewell tour with the Denhof Opera Company.
After finishing her stage career, she worked as a singing teacher at the Royal Manchester College of Music . She died in Manchester at the age of 69 .
Marie Brema and Arthur Frederick Braun's daughter was the actress Tita Brand , who was married to the Belgian writer Emile Cammaerts .
literature
- Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 126, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- G. Davidson, Opera Biographies (Werner Laurie, London 1955)
- W. Elwes and R. Elwes, Gervase Elwes The Story of his Life (London 1935)
- H. Klein, Thirty Years of Musical Life in London (Century Co, New York 1903)
- H. Rosenthal and J Warrack, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (London 1974 Edn)
- GB Shaw, Music in London 1890–1894 , 3 vols, (London, 1932)
- H. Wood, My Life of Music (London, 1938)
- PM Young, Letters of Edward Elgar (Geoffrey Bles, London 1956)
Web links
- Marie Brema at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Marie Brema pictures in the Manskopf Collection of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Individual evidence
- ^ Henry Wood, My Life of Music (Victor Gollancz, London 1946 Edition), 143.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brema, Marie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fehrmann, Mary Agnes (maiden name); Fehrmann, Minnie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British opera singer (mezzo-soprano) and stage actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 28, 1856 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liverpool |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 22, 1925 |
| Place of death | Manchester |