Amelita Galli Curci, Soprano, November 18, 1822
Galli Curci was born in Milan, Italy into an upper middle class family of Italo-Spanish heritage. Her musical prowess was evident at an early age graduating from the Milan Conservatorium and winning the first prize as a pianist in 1903.
We have the opera composer Piero Mascagni to thank for encouraging her to have some vocal lessons with Carignani and Sara Dufes, but apparently she remained mainly self taught as she began her career using piano exercises and treatises available from the former greats to hone her vocal skills. Later in New York she coached with coloratura soprano Estelle Liebling.
She debuted as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the age of 24 and became increasingly more successful over the next eight years in the coloratura repertoire not only in Italy but in Spain, Egypt, Russia and Central and South America. During this time in Buenos Aires she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso.
Having only been offered a contract for minor roles at La Scala in Milan, she vowed never to sing there in the future. Looking for more opportunities he sights were set across the Atlantic. She married the aristocrat Marchese Luigi Curci an aspiring painter architect, costume and set designer and they became the toast of Italian society.
In New York, Galli-Curci hoped to be engaged by the Metropolitan Opera, but Maestro Gatti-Cassazza had already hired his wife, Maria Barrientos, to sing all the coloratura soprano roles that season. Fortunately, Cleofonte Campanini, of the struggling Chicago Opera, was in town looking for singers and was willing to give the diva a chance. Against Luigi’s (her husband) wishes, the Curci family packed their bags and moved to Chicago.
Her much-anticipated Met debut in the same opera was slated for Opening Night, November 14, 1921, alongside two fellow Italians, tenor Beniamino Gigli, who inherited much of Caruso’s lyric repertory, and baritone Giuseppe De Luca. The new production, designed by Joseph Urban and conducted by Roberto Moranzoni, did not disappoint. Max Smith reviewing for the Herald American wrote:
“How fascinating is Amelita’s impersonation of Violetta, already made familiar during her association with the visiting Chicago Opera Company! How imaginatively vivacious in the first act; how pathetic in the second; how tragic in the last. It was fitting, indeed, that Giulio Gatti-Casazza should bring forward his latest “star” in Traviata. For surely no other role reveals her own peculiar powers, histrionic as well as vocal, to greater advantage: None permits her to disclose more affectingly the characteristic delicacy of her art, the essentially feminine charm of her persuasions.”
Comparisons with the greatest coloraturas of the recent past—Adelina Patti, Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzini—followed in the press, proving that even for those who found faults with the new diva, she had clearly joined an illustrious line of bel canto virtuosos. In addition to her appearances in opera and numerous recital tours, Galli-Curci’s fame rested equally on her best-selling recordings. Sales for her records rivalled those of Caruso, and she often recorded popular or light songs as well as opera arias. Her distinctive vocal timbre—soft-grained, velvety, and pure—transferred well to records even by the crude technology of the time.”
Her fame and popularity spread. 1918 was a pivotal year in Galli-Curci’s development as an international star. In addition to being followed by paparazzi (which she adored), Amelita became a celebrity endorser for RCA Victor’s “Talking Machines,” appearing in full-page ads in the New York Times in glamorous outfits throughout 1918 and 1919. She also extolled the virtues of cosmetics, furs, and automobiles.
After the Armistice in 1918, Luigi begged Amelita to return to Italy to save their marriage, but Amelita refused to give up stardom and her affair with Homer Samuels, her rehearsal accompanist in Chicago.
Luigi demanded a divorce, and a public scandal ensued, appearing in the society pages of Chicago papers for almost a year.
Amelita Galli-Curci and Homer Samuels were married in Homer’s parents’ home in Minneapolis on Jan. 15, 1921, and Amelita became an American citizen. She never returned to Italy.
The couple bought a country home in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. They called their getaway “Sul Monte” and escaped the stress of Galli-Curci’s career whenever possible.
The rigours of being in such demand and popularity in both two major opera houses Chicago and New York started to tell in her voice, and in 1935 after refusing to acknowledge an ever increasing growth in her neck and the subsequent pain it caused her, she agreed to have the goitre caused by thyroid disjunction removed by a doctor who was not perturbed by operating on such a famous golden throat. On the contrary he apparently bathed in the glory and many photo opportunities were made with his famous patient. However, the operation was not without consequences, and she was never able to move into the lyric and dramatic soprano repertoire that the doctor had led her to believe would be awaiting her after she healed. The dubious honour of having the damaged nerve, the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve named after her ensued, and is still referred to as the “nerve of Galli Curci” up until this day.
In their retirement years Galli Curci and her husband Homer became interested in Eastern spirituality and were active members of the Yogananda Society. Galli Curci wrote the forward to Paramahansa Yogananda’s 1929 book Whispers from Eternity. Yogananda’s most famous book being Autobiography of a Yogi, a work known to have inspired many people worldwide, including George Harrison and Apple founder Steve Jobs.
In a video recording Joan Sutherland recounts how she and her husband Richard Bonynge were very excited to have the opportunity to meet their vocal heroine, and apart from exchanging Coloratura talk, she reminisced on how she was very taken by the style and presence of the diva when she opened the door to greet them completely dressed in matching pink apart from a tortoise shell comb in her hair. Sutherland lovingly ordered pink note paper in her honour which always made her remember her.
She was also appreciated and honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Galli Curci died eight days after her 81st birthday at her home in California.
From the forward of Whispers of Eternity she wrote:
“The followers of all religions can drink from this fountain of universal prayers. These invocations are the answer to the modern scientific mind, which seeks God intelligently. The prayers in this book are presented in great variety, and therefore enable each one of us to choose those prayers best suited and helpful to his own particular needs.
My humble request to the readers is expressed in the following lines:
Pass not by, with hurried intellectual reading, the mines of realization hidden in the soil nourishing the word plants in this book. As the author tells us, dig into them deeply, daily and repeatedly, with a pickaxe of attentive, reverential, and meditative study. Then you will find the priceless gem of Self-realization.”
YouTube video with an array of photos including Galli Curci on her Australian tour pictured with a Kookaburra (another famous bird with an amazing trill!)
JON VICKERS, TENOR, OCTOBER 29TH, 1926
Born in 1926 in rural Saskatchewan, Jon Vickers was a very private man. Indeed as one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century, his reticence comes as a surprise until one recognises he harnessed his emotions, dynamism, and single-minded professionalism for his stage performances. No greater tribute can be given than that of his ideal partner in so many Wagnerian roles than that of Birgit Nilsson who wrote, ‘..I have had many wonderful tenors on stage. … But Jon Vickers was different, very different, both as an artist and as a human being. He looked neither right nor left; his opinions were as strong as the rock of Die Walküre. He had to have it his way, no matter what.’ His amazing dedication to his art can be heard in his performances and his statement that, ‘No matter what we did in this pursuit of excellence, we did it for the glory of God. I have never lost that.’ His sense of religious purpose gave his performances an unforgettable and thrilling tension, that made him a superlative singer, without pretensions and total immersion in the character and drama.
His early upbringing was marked by the depression, labouring in the family fields, which sometimes is attributed to his strength and stamina. His family, who were all enamoured of music and singing, listened to the radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons and this meant young Jon heard the very best of the best. Young Jon was in great demand as a church singer, and he performed frequently, but he observed years later, ‘To begin with, I sang because I had to sing. It was part of me … an absolute necessity, fulfilling some kind of emotional and even physical need in me.’
His singing in churches eventually brought him to the notice of George Lambert who scouted Canada for fresh young talent, and although Jon was 25 at the time, Lambert offered him a scholarship to Toronto Conservatory. In later years, Vickers acknowledged Lambert as the sole teacher he had.
His first professional performance was a concert in Toronto on 17 April 1951. Throughout the years 1952 to 1956 he was performing in Canada. At this point, even though regularly performing, he was having doubts about a career as it was difficult for him to provide for his growing family and he had set a deadline to quit singing for June 1956. At this crucial point gate stepped in when Regina Resnik recommended Vickers to her agent. International attention meant that by 1957 he made numerous appearances in London singing Verdi and French repertoire. But it was in the performance of Wagner that he truly made his mark, and his legend. His first Bayreuth appearance was as Siegmund in Die Walküre on 28 July 1958. Thereafter Siegmund was his domain. He sang the heavy Verdi roles, and his Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Britten’s Peter Grimes of the eponymous opera are the standard by which all others are measured against. His final performance was typical of the great but publicity shy man, a concertina performance of Act 2 of Parsifal in Kitchener, in rural Ontario.
His huge and powerful voice may be heard in the classic recording of Tristan und Isolde, under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. Despite Vickers’ reputation as a challenging colleague, he was one of Karajan’s favourite singers. It is regrettable that we can no longer observe him live on stage. In the words of one critic, Vickers ‘dominated the stage from first to last. In ringing voice, the tenor created a tragic figure of terrifying strength and heart-rending poignancy, shaped with the full range of hues, from the arrogant military man to the whimpering creature on the floor of his cell.’ It is interesting to note that such was the intensity and excitement of his stage persona, that other singers were allegedly fearful of him.
The most heroic of tenors, Jon Vickers passed away on 10 July 2015. His signature role, is arguably Peter Grimes.
JON VICKERS, TENOR, OCTOBER 29TH, 1926
Born in 1926 in rural Saskatchewan, Jon Vickers was a very private man. Indeed as one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century, his reticence comes as a surprise until one recognises he harnessed his emotions, dynamism, and single-minded professionalism for his stage performances. No greater tribute can be given than that of his ideal partner in so many Wagnerian roles than that of Birgit Nilsson who wrote, ‘..I have had many wonderful tenors on stage. … But Jon Vickers was different, very different, both as an artist and as a human being. He looked neither right nor left; his opinions were as strong as the rock of Die Walküre. He had to have it his way, no matter what.’ His amazing dedication to his art can be heard in his performances and his statement that, ‘No matter what we did in this pursuit of excellence, we did it for the glory of God. I have never lost that.’ His sense of religious purpose gave his performances an unforgettable and thrilling tension, that made him a superlative singer, without pretensions and total immersion in the character and drama.
His early upbringing was marked by the depression, labouring in the family fields, which sometimes is attributed to his strength and stamina. His family, who were all enamoured of music and singing, listened to the radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons and this meant young Jon heard the very best of the best. Young Jon was in great demand as a church singer, and he performed frequently, but he observed years later, ‘To begin with, I sang because I had to sing. It was part of me … an absolute necessity, fulfilling some kind of emotional and even physical need in me.’
His singing in churches eventually brought him to the notice of George Lambert who scouted Canada for fresh young talent, and although Jon was 25 at the time, Lambert offered him a scholarship to Toronto Conservatory. In later years, Vickers acknowledged Lambert as the sole teacher he had.
His first professional performance was a concert in Toronto on 17 April 1951. Throughout the years 1952 to 1956 he was performing in Canada. At this point, even though regularly performing, he was having doubts about a career as it was difficult for him to provide for his growing family and he had set a deadline to quit singing for June 1956. At this crucial point gate stepped in when Regina Resnik recommended Vickers to her agent. International attention meant that by 1957 he made numerous appearances in London singing Verdi and French repertoire. But it was in the performance of Wagner that he truly made his mark, and his legend. His first Bayreuth appearance was as Siegmund in Die Walküre on 28 July 1958. Thereafter Siegmund was his domain. He sang the heavy Verdi roles, and his Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Britten’s Peter Grimes of the eponymous opera are the standard by which all others are measured against. His final performance was typical of the great but publicity shy man, a concertina performance of Act 2 of Parsifal in Kitchener, in rural Ontario.
His huge and powerful voice may be heard in the classic recording of Tristan und Isolde, under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. Despite Vickers’ reputation as a challenging colleague, he was one of Karajan’s favourite singers. It is regrettable that we can no longer observe him live on stage. In the words of one critic, Vickers ‘dominated the stage from first to last. In ringing voice, the tenor created a tragic figure of terrifying strength and heart-rending poignancy, shaped with the full range of hues, from the arrogant military man to the whimpering creature on the floor of his cell.’ It is interesting to note that such was the intensity and excitement of his stage persona, that other singers were allegedly fearful of him.
The most heroic of tenors, Jon Vickers passed away on 10 July 2015. His signature role, is arguably Peter Grimes.
SHORT006 KANGAROOS IN AUSTRIA OR KOALA BEARS IN GREECE?
Check out the Voice Detective Gyaan Lyon’s latest discovery…
SHORT006 KANGAROOS IN AUSTRIA OR KOALA BEARS IN GREECE?
Check out the Voice Detective Gyaan Lyon’s latest observation discovery…
Episode 7 Part 2 of The Voice Detective Show with Garth McLean
Garth McLean, is a Canadian actor, author, and a dedicated practitioner and highly respected Senior teacher of Iyengar yoga living in Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Garth’s acting credits include the Hollywood films Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Prototype, Rockin’ Road Trip and Chicago Hope.
Having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1996, Garth manages his condition and his hectic acting and yoga teaching schedule with a daily practice of Iyengar Yoga as presented by the late Yoga master, Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar.
Garth is a leading light in the world Iyengar community and the Iyengar family in Pune, India where since 2000, he returns annually to study and deepen his practice. He learned yoga directly from both the late B.K.S. Iyengar himself, and his eldest daughter Geeta.
As a teacher of yoga, he is a senior level Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher “CIYT” (Level 3 – Intermediate Sr III), a Certified Yoga Therapist and Approved Professional Development Provider with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT), and a Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 500) and Continuing Education Provider (YACEP) with yoga alliance.
In 2019, Garth was honoured to serve as the headline Iyengar Yoga teacher at the World Yoga Festival. In addition to this, that same year, he was a presenter and plenary speaker at the International Association of Yoga Therapists Symposium of Yoga Therapy and Research (SYTAR).
Garth has served as a guest teacher at the France Iyengar Yoga Teachers’ Convention (2009), the Spain Iyengar Yoga Teachers’ Convention (2011), and more recently is a co presenter at the European Congress of Rehabilitation and Medicine in Slovenia (April 2024).
He teaches yoga intensives locally and globally. In addition to regular intensives, he offers workshops on the positive effect of yoga on multiple sclerosis and other neurological conditions. He regularly offers workshops in Europe, the UK, and South America. He has also taught in Australia, Russia Federation and Tunisia.
He is a co-founder and current board faculty member of the Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics group, a non-profit organisation based in Los Angeles whose mission is to helping people manage diseases and conditions through the therapeutic applications of yoga. Garth serves on the advisory board and is a faculty member of AnuYoga, a non-profit organisation (Tel Aviv), that facilitates the integration of Iyengar Yoga as a therapeutic intervention for patient rehabilitative care in hospitals and the medical field.
He has published Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis, A Practical Guide for People with Multiple Sclerosis and Yoga Teachers, (Singing Dragon Books, London 2020).
In last month’s Episode 7 Part One ‘Iyengar Yoga for (Dis)Abilities’, Garth tells Gyaan about his journey with Multiple Sclerosis and how Iyengar Yoga has helped him keep his condition in remission…
In this month’s Episode 7 Part Two, ‘Garth McLean’s Acting Journey Insights’, Garth will talk about his experience in acting and performing. His experience as a student of acting included working with Sanford Meisner in New York at his Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. More recently, he has written and performed a one-person show entitled, Looking For Lightning, about his journey which he performed live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2018). More about Looking for Lightning can be found at www.lookingforlightning.com
Episode 7 Part 2 of The Voice Detective Show with Garth McLean
Garth McLean, is a Canadian actor, author, and a dedicated practitioner and highly respected Senior teacher of Iyengar yoga living in Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Garth’s acting credits include the Hollywood films Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Prototype, Rockin’ Road Trip and Chicago Hope.
Having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1996, Garth manages his condition and his hectic acting and yoga teaching schedule with a daily practice of Iyengar Yoga as presented by the late Yoga master, Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar.
Garth is a leading light in the world Iyengar community and the Iyengar family in Pune, India where since 2000, he returns annually to study and deepen his practice. He learned yoga directly from both the late B.K.S. Iyengar himself, and his eldest daughter Geeta.
As a teacher of yoga, he is a senior level Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher “CIYT” (Level 3 – Intermediate Sr III), a Certified Yoga Therapist and Approved Professional Development Provider with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT), and a Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 500) and Continuing Education Provider (YACEP) with yoga alliance.
In 2019, Garth was honoured to serve as the headline Iyengar Yoga teacher at the World Yoga Festival. In addition to this, that same year, he was a presenter and plenary speaker at the International Association of Yoga Therapists Symposium of Yoga Therapy and Research (SYTAR).
Garth has served as a guest teacher at the France Iyengar Yoga Teachers’ Convention (2009), the Spain Iyengar Yoga Teachers’ Convention (2011), and more recently is a co presenter at the European Congress of Rehabilitation and Medicine in Slovenia (April 2024).
He teaches yoga intensives locally and globally. In addition to regular intensives, he offers workshops on the positive effect of yoga on multiple sclerosis and other neurological conditions. He regularly offers workshops in Europe, the UK, and South America. He has also taught in Australia, Russia Federation and Tunisia.
He is a co-founder and current board faculty member of the Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics group, a non-profit organisation based in Los Angeles whose mission is to helping people manage diseases and conditions through the therapeutic applications of yoga. Garth serves on the advisory board and is a faculty member of AnuYoga, a non-profit organisation (Tel Aviv), that facilitates the integration of Iyengar Yoga as a therapeutic intervention for patient rehabilitative care in hospitals and the medical field.
He has published Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis, A Practical Guide for People with Multiple Sclerosis and Yoga Teachers, (Singing Dragon Books, London 2020).
In last month’s Episode 7 Part One ‘Iyengar Yoga for (Dis)Abilities’, Garth tells Gyaan about his journey with Multiple Sclerosis and how Iyengar Yoga has helped him keep his condition in remission…
In this month’s Episode 7 Part Two, ‘Garth McLean’s Acting Journey Insights’, Garth will talk about his experience in acting and performing. His experience as a student of acting included working with Sanford Meisner in New York at his Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. More recently, he has written and performed a one-person show entitled, Looking For Lightning, about his journey which he performed live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2018). More about Looking for Lightning can be found at www.lookingforlightning.com
HN004 Leonardo da Vinci, his musicianship and the Mona Lisa
We know that Leonardo da Vinci was raised and trained in Florence, within the beating heart of the Renaissance. We also think of him as the painter of the Mona Lisa and as an outstanding researcher into the wonders of nature. He was active for many years at the court of the Dukes of Milan where he painted his famous Last Supper.
But, how many of us are aware that, according to his early biographer, Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci was initially summoned to Milan due to his reputation as a musician? I quote from A.B. Hinds translation, of Vasari’s lives, ‘On the death of Giovan. Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, and the accession of Ludovico Sforza in the same year, 1493, Lionardo was invited to Milan to play the lyre, in which that prince greatly delighted. Lionardo took his own instrument, made by himself in silver, and shaped like a horse’s head, a curious and novel idea to render the harmonies more loud and sonorous, so that he surpassed all the musicians who had assembled there.’
The relation between Leonardo and music doesn’t stop here though. He wrote many notes in his research and pondering on the nature of sound, and about music and the production of sounds. But as a final interesting fact, and again from Vasari, whilst painting the Mona Lisa, ‘he engaged people to play and sing, and jesters to keep her merry, and remove that melancholy which painting usually gives to portraits.’
HN004 Leonardo da Vinci, his musicianship and the Mona Lisa
We know that Leonardo da Vinci was raised and trained in Florence, within the beating heart of the Renaissance. We also think of him as the painter of the Mona Lisa and as an outstanding researcher into the wonders of nature. He was active for many years at the court of the Dukes of Milan where he painted his famous Last Supper.
But, how many of us are aware that, according to his early biographer, Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci was initially summoned to Milan due to his reputation as a musician? I quote from A.B. Hinds translation, of Vasari’s lives, ‘On the death of Giovan. Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, and the accession of Ludovico Sforza in the same year, 1493, Lionardo was invited to Milan to play the lyre, in which that prince greatly delighted. Lionardo took his own instrument, made by himself in silver, and shaped like a horse’s head, a curious and novel idea to render the harmonies more loud and sonorous, so that he surpassed all the musicians who had assembled there.’
The relation between Leonardo and music doesn’t stop here though. He wrote many notes in his research and pondering on the nature of sound, and about music and the production of sounds. But as a final interesting fact, and again from Vasari, whilst painting the Mona Lisa, ‘he engaged people to play and sing, and jesters to keep her merry, and remove that melancholy which painting usually gives to portraits.’
JENNY LIND, SOPRANO, OCTOBER 6TH, 1820
Jenny Lind 1820
Coined the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm in 1820. Her exceptional voice was noticed at age ten, and as even as a young girl she was enrolled in the Royal Opera School in Stockholm. In 1838 she made her debut at Agathe in Der Freischütz. Early demands and success overtaxed her voice and this led her to travel to Paris to seek consultation and tutelage from Manuel García the younger, who immediately prescribed some time of vocal rest before taking her on as a student. In 1842 upon returning to Stockholm her much improved voice was apparent when she appeared in the title role of Norma.
When touring Denmark, in 1843, she met the writer Hans Christian Andersen who fell in love with her. The two became good friends but his romantic feelings were not reciprocated. She is believed to have inspired three of his fairy tales: “Beneath the Pillar”, “The Angel” and “The Nightingale” and possibly the “Snow Queen”, after what was perceived as an icy rejection from Lind. He wrote, “No book or personality whatever has exerted a more ennobling influence on me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind. For me she opened the sanctuary of art.”
Among her early admirers were Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz and, most importantly for her, Felix Mendelssohn. The pianist and composer, Ignaz Moscheles wrote: “Jenny Lind has fairly enchanted me… her song with two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard”.
The character of Vielka, from Meyerbeer’s Ein Feldlager in Schlesien (The Camp of Silesia) 1844, was a role specifically written for Lind but not premiered by her. Nevertheless the Gypsy Song from the opera became one of the arias most associated with Lind, and she was called on to sing it wherever she performed in concert. Her operatic repertoire included the title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria di Rohan, Norma, La sonnambula and La vestale as well as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Alice in Robert le diable.
Mendelssohn who was greatly enamoured with Lind wrote the soprano part of the Oratorio Elijah with her voice in mind, apparently giving great attention to the tessitura of the aria around the note F-sharp (F#5), which was a note in her range that Mendelssohn supposedly found irresistibly charming. Devastated by Mendelssohn’s early death, Lind felt unable to perform the piece at its premiere.
Her fame had spread and when she arrived in England, she took the English audiences by storm. Queen Victoria herself attended all sixteen of Lind’s premiere performances.
Of her performances at Her Majesty’s in London it was written by the reviewer in The Sun, on 5 May 1847, ‘So highly had Jenny Lind’s musical powers been praised, that we went almost prepared to be disappointed. We expected to find her a second Sontag from the descriptions we had read, but we certainly were not prepared to find, as we did find, the beautiful tones of a Sontag, united to the powers of a Grisi, the compass of a Malibran, the more than flexibility of a Persiani, and the correctness of intonation of the most perfect of musical instruments. It is impossible by language to convey any idea of what the voice of Jenny Lind really is, because it is so surpassingly beautiful – so superior to any other voice, uniting, as it does, the perfection of all voices, that there is no standard to which it can be compared. It is, in fact, itself the standard, as being the nearest approach to perfection of any voice ever heard, and hence the difficulty, nay, the absolute impossibility of doing justice by description to the powers of Jenny Lind. Truly has she been called the nightingale, for she possesses in the utmost perfection the “jug” note of the bird, and also that marvellous power of throwing, as it were, the warble into the distance – now dying away, and now swelling again, even as an organ does – a power possessed by no other human voice that we have ever heard.’
In 1849 after performing at two successful seasons at Her Majesty’s in London and an extensive tour of Great Britain she gave her final performance at Her Majesty’s and from the retired from the opera stage.
A next chapter was to open with a collaboration in America with the entrepreneur and showman B.T. Barnum of ‘Barnum and Bailey’s Circus’. Before her arrival, Barnum had managed to whip up a fever by an immense publicity campaign, which resulted in what was known in the press as, Lindomania. The eight months of concert tours were a huge success, and by the end of the New York engagement, the Lind concerts had generated some $87,055.89, which would be over three million dollars in today’s money. The total receipts for the concerts amounted to $712,161.43, being in 2020 the equivalent of $24.5 million.
Lind commanded a guaranteed fee $1,000.00 per performance. Later, as a result of Lind tiring of Barnum’s relentless promotion, she invoked a clause in her contract to terminate the agreement and continued to tour under her own management.
Her devotion and generosity to charitable causes remained a key aspect of her career and greatly enhanced her international popularity, even among the unmusical, as she chose to give most of it away to charities she loved—primarily music scholarships and private schools. Some of the recipients were in the United States and the rest were mostly in England and Sweden.
During the American tour she met her husband, pianist and conductor, Otto Goldschmidt. In 1852 they returned to Europe where they initially lived in Dresden Germany. It was in Dresden that her first child was born. Later, in England, two other children were born to Jenny and Otto. She refused requests to return to the opera stage but continued to give concerts.
The critic H. F. Chorley, who admired Lind, described her voice as having “two octaves in compass – from D to D – having a higher possible note or two, available on rare occasions; and that the lower half of the register and the upper one were of two distinct qualities. The former was not strong – veiled, if not husky; and apt to be out of tune. The latter was rich, brilliant and powerful – finest in its highest portions.”
In 1883, at the request of the Prince of Wales, “she accepted the post of first Professor of Singing in the Royal College of Music”.
She believed in an all-round musical training for her pupils, insisting that, in addition to their vocal studies, they were instructed in solfège, piano, harmony, diction, deportment and at least one foreign language.
Among the numerous recognitions of her remarkable career and vocal art still visible more than 130 years since she died in 1887; there are streets named for Jenny Lind in a dozen or more American cities – but two towns bear her name as well: Jenny Lind, Arkansas and Jenny Lind, California! Her name is honoured at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and her image adorned the Swedish 50-krona banknote. Another interesting fact is an Australian schooner was named Jenny Lind in her honour. In 1857, it was wrecked in a creek on the Queensland coast; the creek was accordingly named Jenny Lind Creek.
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