ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK
CONRALTO
JUNE 15, 1861

‘And what but surpassing praise can be written of that extraordinary woman and artist – Ernestine Schumann-Heink? She had come to the Metropolitan before me, but later I came to know her work and to admire it intensely. When she returned to sing Erda in ”Das Rheingold” after an absence of nine years the effect was amazing. The audience, of course, was as moved by her as ever, and as it was again recently when she came back to sing Erda in both “Das Rheingold” and “Siegfried.” She was truly a vocal miracle – a woman, past seventy, (sic) who could still command style and quality of voice.’^[i]

If longevity in a career is any reflection upon the greatness of a singer, then surely Ernestine Schumann-Heink must rank as one of the greatest artists of all time. From a precocious debut at age 17 in the role of Azucena – yes, you read that correctly – to her final performance as Erda at age 67, Schumann-Heink had one of the most spectacularly long careers of any singer of any age.

Notwithstanding her own early start on stage, she later wrote that, ‘It is my opinion that no girl who wishes to keep her voice in the prime of condition all the time in after years should start to study much earlier than seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the case of a man I do not believe that he should; start until he is past twenty or even twenty-two.’ ^[ii] Ernestine kept great store by the preservation and condition of her voice and no doubt she wrote from experience, seeing the rise and fall of many colleagues.

But it is not her stamina and sheer endurance we must admire. Ernestine Schumann-Heink was one of the outstanding artists in a golden age of opera, and she cultivated her popularity and success in that least recognised vocal domain, that of the contralto. Ernestine sang under Mahler,^[iii] Richard Strauss, and with the finest exponents of the vocal art. She encompassed all the repertory, songs, popular and art, Grand Opera, Wagner and twentieth century classics. She created the role of Klymenestra in Elektra in Dresden in 1909, where perhaps infamously the composer Richard Strauss, shouted to the conductor Ernst von Schuch, ‘Louder, louder the orchestra! I can still hear the Heink!’^[iv]

Schumann-Heink possessed a tremendous range, and her most notable roles as far as the Anglophone public were concerned, were Erda and Waltraute. In the words of Henry Pleasants, ‘the glory of her sumptuous voice was at the bottom rather than the top.’ A contemporary described her voice as, possessing, ‘opulent and flexible tones from low D to high B, the amazing fullness and evenness of her shake, her artistic conviction, dramatic temperament and vivid enunciation.’^[v] which explain part of why she was a sensation.

But possibly another secret is found in her own words, ‘My secret is absolute devotion to the audience. I love my audiences. They are all my friends.’^[vi] And further due to this profound respect for her audience, ‘Therefore it is necessary for me to have my voice in the best of condition every day of the year.’ She also noted that, ‘[the] voice must first of all be beautiful. Bel canto – beautiful singing – not the singing of meaningless Italian phrases, as so many insist, but the glorious bel canto…’^[vii]

For those who take an holistic view of a singer’s vocal health, it is of interest that she practiced deep breathing every day of [her] life.^[viii] This quite possibly contributed to her remarkable capacity to remain focussed at all times. She had this to say about being in, what we call nowadays, ‘the zone.’ ‘The singer must relax all the times. This does not mean flabbiness. It does not mean that the singer should collapse before singing. Relaxation in the singer’s sense is a delicious condition of buoyancy, of lightness, of freedom, of ease and entire lack of tightening in any part. When I relax I feel as though every atom in my body were floating in space. There is not one single little nerve or tension.’^[ix]

Born in 1861 in Lieben in Austria-Hungary, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who became naturalised as a United States citizen, passed away in Hollywood on 17 November 1936.^[x]