Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861-1936) sings Luigi Arditi's "Leggero Invisible."
Lest anyone think that a contralto who devoted most of her career to heavy roles in Wagner couldn't shed her Rhein Maiden garb and take to the boards to sing an Arditi coloratura ditty, MAGNIFICANTLY, listen carefully to this recording. Schumann-Heink often included it in her concerts.
She recorded it twice---on July 24, 1907--and again about 20 years later as
an electric Victor Orthophonic.
Shumann-Heink was born as Tini Rössler to a German-speaking family in the town of Lieben, near Prague, now in the Czech Republic but then part of the Austrian Empire.
Her father Hans Rössler was a shoemaker. The family moved to Graz when Tini was thirteen. Here she met Marietta von LeClair, a retired opera singer, who agreed to give her voice lessons. In 1877 she made her first professional performance, in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Graz.
Tini made her operatic debut at Dresden's Royal Opera House on October 15, 1878 as Azucena in Il Trovatore—at age 17. The photo in the video, showing the THIN young contralto, was taken when she was 18, in 1879.
In 1882 she married Ernest Heink, secretary of the Dresden Opera, with whom she had four children; this violated the terms of their contracts, and both were abruptly terminated from their positions. Heink took a job at the local customs house and was soon transferred to Hamburg. Ernestine remained in Dresden to pursue her career, and eventually rejoined her husband when she secured a position at the Hamburg Opera.
Ernest Heink was again thrown out of work when Saxons were banned from government positions, and departed to Saxony to find work. Ernestine, pregnant, did not follow him; they were divorced in 1893. That year she married actor Paul Schumann, with whom she had three more children. The second marriage lasted until Paul Schumann's death in 1904.
Her breakthrough into leading roles was provided when prima donna Marie Goetze argued with the director of the Hamburg opera. He asked Ernestine to sing the title role of CARMAN, without rehearsal, which she did to great acclaim. Goetze, in a fit of pique, cancelled out of the role of Fides in La Prophete, to be performed the FOLLOWING night, and was again replaced by Ernestine. Schumann-Heink replaced Goetze as Ortrud in Lohengrin the NEXT evening, again without rehearsal---and was offered a ten-year contract.
She performed with Gustav Mahler at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Bayreuth Festivals from 1896 to 1914.
She first sang at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1898, and performed with the Met regularly thereafter for decades.
Schumann-Heink made the first of her many phonograph recordings in 1900.
In 1905 she married William Rapp, Jr., her manager. They divorced in 1915. She and her new husband lived near Montclair, New Jersey from 1906 to 1911. She then moved to 500 acres of farmland just outside of San Diego, California, where she would live for most of the remainder ofher life.
In 1909 she created the role of Clytemnestra in debut of Richard Strauss' Elektra, of which she said she had no high opinion. Strauss, for his part, was not entirely taken by Schumann-Heink; according to one story, during rehearsals he told the orchestra "Louder! I can still hear Mme. Schumann-Heink!"
During World War I she toured the United States raising money for the war effort, although she had relatives fighting on both sides of the war - including her son August Heink, a merchant mariner who joined the German submarine service, and stepson Walter Schumann, and sons Henry Heink and George Washington Schumann, all in the United States Navy.
In 1915 she appeared as herself in the early documentary film Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, which was directed by and starred Fatty Arbuckle.
In 1926 she first sang Silent Night (in both German and English) over the radio for Christmas. This became a Christmas tradition with US radio listeners through Christmas of 1935.
Her last performance at the Met was in 1932. In her later years she had a weekly radio program, the Gerber (baby food) Hour. Most of these programs survive which, incidentally, don't run an hour!
Ernestine Schumann-Heink died of leukaemia in 1936.
Tags: gmmix coloratura contralto Schumann-Heink Arditi Wagner Wagnerian Victor
