Jenny Lind | |
|---|---|
 1862 portrait | |
| Born | Johanna Maria Lind (1820-10-06)6 October 1820 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Died | 2 November 1887(1887-11-02) (aged 67) Herefordshire, England |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
| Spouse | |
| Signature | |
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Johanna Maria Lind (Madame Goldschmidt)[1] (6 October 1820 – 2 November 1887) was a Swedishopera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed insoprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popularconcert tour of the United States beginning in 1850. She was a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
Lind became famous after her performance inDer Freischütz in Sweden in 1838. Within a few years, she had suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacherManuel García saved her voice. She was in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, and was closely associated withFelix Mendelssohn. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29.
In 1850, Lind went to the United States at the invitation of the showmanP. T. Barnum. She gave 93 large-scale concerts for him and then continued to tour under her own management. She earned more than $350,000 (equivalent to $13,228,600 in 2024) from these concerts, donating the proceeds to charities, principally the endowment of free schools in Sweden. With her new husband,Otto Goldschmidt, she returned to Europe in 1852, settling in England in 1855. She had three children and gave occasional concerts over the next three decades. From 1882, she was a professor of singing at theRoyal College of Music in London for some years.
Born inKlara in centralStockholm, Sweden, Lind was the illegitimate daughter of Niclas Jonas Lind, a bookkeeper, and Anne-Marie Fellborg, a schoolteacher.[2] Lind's mother had divorced her first husband for adultery but refused to remarry until after his death in 1834. Lind's parents married when she was 14.[2]
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Lind's mother ran a day school for girls out of her home. When Lind was about 9, her singing was overheard by the maid of Mademoiselle Lundberg, the principal dancer at theRoyal Swedish Opera.[2] The maid, astounded by Lind's extraordinary voice, returned the next day with Lundberg, who arranged an audition and helped her gain admission to theRoyal Dramatic Training Academy, the acting school of theRoyal Dramatic Theatre, where she studied withCarl Magnus Craelius, the singing master at the theatre.[3]
Lind began to sing onstage when she was 10. She had a vocal crisis at the age of 12 and had to stop singing for a time, but she recovered.[3] Her first great role was Agathe inWeber'sDer Freischütz in 1838 at the Royal Swedish Opera.[2] At 20, she was a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Music andcourt singer to the King of Sweden and Norway. Her voice became seriously damaged by overuse and untrained singing technique, but her career was saved by the singing teacherManuel García with whom she studied in Paris from 1841 to 1843. He insisted that she should not sing at all for three months, to allow her vocal cords to recover, before he started to teach her a healthy and secure[2][3]Bel canto vocal technique.[4]
After Lind had been with García for a year, the composerGiacomo Meyerbeer, an early and faithful admirer of her talent, arranged an audition for her at theOpéra in Paris, but she was rejected. The biographer Francis Rogers concludes that Lind strongly resented the rebuff: when she became an international star, she always refused invitations to sing at the Paris Opéra.[4] Lind returned to the Royal Swedish Opera, greatly improved as a singer by García's training. She toured Denmark where, in 1843,Hans Christian Andersen met and fell in love with her. Although the two became good friends, she did not reciprocate his romantic feelings. She is believed to have inspired three of hisfairy tales: "Beneath the Pillar", "The Angel" and "The Nightingale".[5] 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."[5] The biographer Carol Rosen believes that after Lind rejected Andersen as a suitor, he portrayed her asThe Snow Queen with a heart of ice.[2][n 1]
In December 1844, through Meyerbeer's influence, Lind was engaged to sing the title role inBellini's operaNorma in Berlin.[4] That led to more engagements in opera houses throughout Germany and Austria, but such was her success in Berlin that she continued there for four months before she left for other cities.[3] Among her early admirers wereRobert Schumann,Hector Berlioz and, most importantly for her,Felix Mendelssohn.[7]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".[4] That number, from Meyerbeer'sEin Feldlager in Schlesien (The Camp of Silesia, 1844, a role written for Lind but not premiered by her) became one of the songs most associated with Lind, and she was called on to sing it wherever she performed in concert.[2] Her operatic repertoire included the title roles inLucia di Lammermoor,Maria di Rohan,Norma,La sonnambula andLa vestale as well as Susanna inThe Marriage of Figaro, Adina inL'elisir d'amore and Alice inRobert le diable.[4] According to Lindsay B. Yeates, "whilst the beauty of her voice was far greater than any other in living memory ([she was called] theSwedish Nightingale), what really set her apart was her outstanding ability to act".[8] In December 1845, the day after her debut at theLeipzig Gewandhaus under the baton of Mendelssohn, she sang without fee for a charity concert in aid of the Orchestra Widows' Fund. Her devotion and generosity to charitable causes remained a key aspect of her career and greatly enhanced her international popularity even among the unmusical.[2]
At the Royal Swedish Opera, Lind had been friends with the tenorJulius Günther. They sang together both in opera and on the concert stage and became romantically linked by 1844. Their schedules separated them, however, as Günther remained in Stockholm and then became a student of Garcia in Paris in 1846–1847. After reuniting in Sweden, according to Lind's 1891Memoir, they became engaged to marry in the spring of 1848, just before Lind returned to England. However, the two broke off the engagement in October of the same year.[9]
After a successful season in Vienna, where she was mobbed by admirers and feted by the Imperial Family,[3] Lind travelled to London and gave her first performance there on 4 May 1847, when she appeared in an Italian version of Meyerbeer'sRobert le diable. It was attended byQueen Victoria; the next day,The Times wrote:
We have had frequent experience of the excitement appertaining to "first nights", but we may safely say, and our opinion will be backed by several hundreds of Her Majesty's subjects, that we never witnessed such a scene of enthusiasm as that displayed last night on the occasion of Mademoiselle Jenny Lind'sdébut as Alice in an Italian version ofRobert le diable.[10]
Queen Victoria attended each of Lind's sixteen debut performances in London.[11] In July 1847, Lind starred in the world première ofVerdi's operaI masnadieri atHer Majesty's Theatre, under the baton of the composer.[12] During her two years on the operatic stage in London, Lind appeared in most of the standard opera repertory.[4] In early 1849, still in her twenties, Lind announced her permanent retirement from opera. Her last opera performance was on 10 May 1849 inRobert le diable; Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family were present.[13] Lind's biographer Francis Rogers wrote, "The reasons for her early retirement have been much discussed for nearly a century, but remain today a matter of mystery. Many possible explanations have been advanced, but not one of them has been verified".[4]
In London, Lind's close friendship withMendelssohn continued. There had been speculation that their relationship extended beyond friendship.[14] In 2013, George Biddlecombe confirmed in theJournal of the Royal Musical Association that "The Committee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her, and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death".[15]
Mendelssohn was present at Lind's London debut inRobert le diable, and his friend, the criticHenry Chorley, who was with him, wrote: "I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mademoiselle Lind's genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success."[16] Mendelssohn worked with Lind on many occasions and wrote the beginnings of an opera,Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of theLorelei Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He composed the soprano aria in hisoratorioElijah ("Hear Ye Israel") with Lind's voice in mind, focusing thetessitura of the aria aroundF-sharp (F♯5), a note in her range that Mendelssohn supposedly found irresistibly charming.[17]
Four months after her London debut, she was devastated by the premature death of Mendelssohn in November 1847. She did not at first feel able to sing the soprano part inElijah, which he had written for her. She finally did so at a performance in London'sExeter Hall in late 1848, which raised £1,000 to fund a musical scholarship as a memorial to him; it was her first appearance in oratorio.[18] The original intention had been to found a school of music in Mendelssohn's name inLeipzig, but there was not enough support there, and with the help ofSir George Smart,Julius Benedict and others, Lind eventually raised enough money to fund a scholarship "to receive pupils of all nations and promote their musical training".[18] The first recipient of the Mendelssohn Scholarship was the 14-year-oldArthur Sullivan, whom Lind encouraged in his career.[2]
In 1849, Lind was approached by the American showmanP. T. Barnum with a proposal to tour throughout the United States, giving 150 concerts in eighteen months. Realising that it would yield large sums for charity, particularly the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden, Lind demanded a fixed fee of $1,000 per concert, and in January 1850 Barnum agreed.[4][19]
Together with a supporting baritone,Giovanni Belletti, and her London colleague, Julius Benedict, as pianist, arranger and conductor, Lind sailed to America in September 1850. Barnum's advance publicity made her a celebrity even before she arrived in the US, and she received a wild reception on arriving in New York. Tickets for some of her concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The enthusiasm of the public was so strong that the American press coined the term "Lind mania".[20]
After her first two performances in New York in September 1850,[21] Lind's party toured the east coast of the United States, with continued success, and later took in Cuba, the Southern US and Canada. By early 1851, Lind had become uncomfortable with Barnum's relentless marketing of the tour, and she invoked a contractual right to sever her ties with him; they parted amicably. She continued the tour for nearly a year, under her own management, until May 1852. Benedict left the party in 1851 to return to England, and Lind invitedOtto Goldschmidt to replace him as pianist and conductor.[4] Lind and Goldschmidt were married on 5 February 1852, near the end of the tour, in Boston. She used the name "Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt" (or "Jenny Goldschmidt Lind" or simply "Jenny Goldschmidt") both privately and professionally.[n 2]
Details of the later concerts under her own management are scarce,[4] but it is known that under Barnum's management Lind gave 93 concerts in the United States for which she earned about $350,000, and he netted at least $500,000[22] ($10.9 million and $15.6 million, as of 2021, respectively).[23] She donated her profits to various charities, including free schools in Sweden and some US charities.[4][24] The tour is a plot point in the 1980 musicalBarnum and the 2017 filmThe Greatest Showman, both of which include a fictionalised relationship between Lind and Barnum with "romantic undertones".[25]
At the time of her tour, the debate overslavery in the United States had been intensified by theCompromise of 1850.American abolitionists attempted to secure Lind's support for their cause, but she refused to comment on the institution. After meeting Lind in July 1851,British abolitionist Judith Griffiths wrote that "thecolored people are regarded by her as beneath humanity – and too unworthy to be educated... She seemed horrified at colored people – I now know for myself that she is thoroughlypro-slavery – I am so grieved."[26] Abolitionist lawyer Maunsell Field wrote that "she had an abhorrence for negroes she could not overcome. 'They are so ugly', she used to say." Yet in June 1852, Lind donated $100 toHarriet Beecher Stowe to free the Edmonsons, a Black familyenslaved in Washington, D.C., praisingUncle Tom's Cabin as "having been a strong means in the Creator's hand of operating essential good in one of the most important questions for the welfare of our black brethren." HistorianJoan D. Hedrick suggested that Stowe's book "may have changed Lind's heart".[26]
Lind and Goldschmidt returned to Europe together in May 1852. They lived first inDresden, Germany, and, from 1855, in England for the rest of their lives.[4] They had three children: Otto, born September 1853 in Germany, Jenny, born March 1857 in England, and Ernest, born January 1861 in England.[2]
Although she refused all requests to appear in opera after her return to Europe, Lind continued to perform in the concert hall. In 1856, at the invitation of thePhilharmonic Society conducted byWilliam Sterndale Bennett, she sang the chief soprano part in the first English performance of the cantataParadise and the Peri byRobert Schumann.[27] In 1866, she gave a concert withArthur Sullivan atSt James's Hall.The Times reported, "there is magic still in that voice... the most perfect singing – perfect alike in expression and in vocalization... Nothing more engaging, nothing more earnest, nothing more dramatic can be imagined."[28] AtDüsseldorf in January 1870, she sang inRuth, an oratorio composed by her husband.[2] When Goldschmidt formed theBach Choir in 1875, Lind trained the soprano choristers for the first English performance of Bach'sB minor Mass in April 1876, and performed in the mass.[29] Her concerts decreased in frequency until she retired from singing in 1883.[4]
From 1879 until 1887, Lind worked withFrederick Niecks on his biography ofFrédéric Chopin.[30] In 1882, she was appointed professor of singing at the newly foundedRoyal 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 insolfège, piano, harmony, diction, deportment and at least one foreign language.[31] Her students included German singer and composerGeorgina Schubert.[32] In 1868, Lind wrote that a singer's vowels must be rich in quality to form a sensation of "speak singing". She also stated that the different registers of the voice were unique to each individual and that each register needed to be trained individually and tailored to the specific singer's ability.[33]
Lind lived her final years at Wynds Point,Herefordshire, on theMalvern Hills near theBritish Camp. Her last public appearance was at a charity concert at Royal Malvern Spa in 1883.[2] She died of cancer at age 67 at Wynds Point on 2 November 1887, and was buried in theGreat Malvern Cemetery to the music of Chopin'sFuneral March. She bequeathed a considerable part of her wealth to help poor Protestant students in Sweden receive an education.[2][34]
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Reviews of Lind's performances in Europe were enthusiastic; those of her London debut were effusive[35] and included the following:
Jenny Lind, undoubtedly the prima donna of the world entered. ... [We heard] the beautiful tones of aSontag, united to the powers of aGrisi, the compass of aMalibran, the more than flexibility of aPersiani, and the correctness of intonation of the most perfect of musical instruments. It is ... so surpassingly beautiful – so superior to any other voice, uniting, as it does, the perfection of all voices. ... It is, in fact, itself the standard, as being the nearest approach to perfection of any voice ever heard. ... 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.[36]
Her biographer Francis Rogers noted his own and others' dissenting views, stating that although Lind was much admired by Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, the Schumanns, Berlioz and others, "In voice and in dramatic talent she was undoubtedly inferior to her predecessors,Malibran andPasta, and to her contemporaries,Sontag andGrisi."[4] He concludes that because of her expert promoters, including Barnum, "almost all that was written about her was undoubtedly biased by an almost overwhelming propaganda in her favor, bought and paid for".[4] Rogers says of Mendelssohn and Lind's other admirers that their tastes were "essentially Teutonic" and, except for Meyerbeer, they were not expert in Italian opera, Lind's early speciality. He quotes a critic of theNew York Herald, who noted "little deficiencies in execution, in ascending the scale, which even enthusiasm cannot deprive of their sharpness".[4] The American press agreed that Lind's presentation was more typical of Germanic "cold, untouching, icy purity of tone and style", rather than the passionate expression necessary for Italian opera, and theHerald wrote that her style was "suited to please the people of our cold climate. She will have triumphs here that would never attend her progress through France or Italy".[4]
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;[n 3] 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."[37] Chorley praised her breath management, her use ofpianissimo, her taste in ornament and her intelligent use of technique to conceal the differences between her upper and lower registers. He thought her "execution was great" and that she was a "skilled and careful musician" but felt that "many of her effects on the stage appeared overcalculated" and that singing in foreign languages impeded her ability to give expression to the text. He felt that her concert singing was more admirable than her operatic performances, but he praised some of her roles.[4][n 4] Chorley judged her finest work to be in the German repertoire, citing Mozart,Haydn and Mendelssohn'sElijah as best suited to her.[37] Miller concluded that although connoisseurs of the voice preferred other singers, her wider appeal to the public at large was not merely a legend created by Barnum but was a mixture of "a uniquely pure (some called it celestial) quality in her voice, consistent with her well-known generosity and charity".[38]
There are no known surviving recordings of Lind's voice. She is believed to have made an earlyphonograph recording forThomas Edison, but in the words of the critic Philip L. Miller, "Even had the fabled Edison cylinder survived, it would have been too primitive, and she too long retired, to tell us much".[38]
Lind is commemorated inPoets' Corner,Westminster Abbey, London under the name "Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt". Among those present at the memorial's unveiling ceremony on 20 April 1894 were Goldschmidt, members of the Royal Family, Sullivan,Sir George Grove and representatives of some of the charities supported by Lind.[39] There is also a plaque commemorating Lind inThe Boltons,Kensington, London[40] and ablue plaque at 189 Old Brompton Road, London, SW7, which was erected in 1909.[41]
Lind has been commemorated in music, on screen and even on banknotes. In the 1930 Hollywood filmA Lady's Morals,Grace Moore starred as Lind, withWallace Beery as Barnum.[42][43] The Swedish opera singerHelga Görlin portrayed Lind in the 1937 Swedish historical drama filmJohn Ericsson, Victor of Hampton Roads.[44] In 1941Ilse Werner starred as Lind in the German-language musical biography filmThe Swedish Nightingale. In 2001, a semibiographical film,Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale, featuredFlora Montgomery as Lind. In 2005,Elvis Costello announced that he was writing an opera about Lind, calledThe Secret Arias with some lyrics by Andersen.[45] A 2010BBC television documentary "Chopin – The Women Behind the Music" includes discussion of Chopin's last years, during which Lind "so affected" the composer.[46]
Both the 1996 and 2006 issues of the Swedish 50-krona banknote bear a portrait of Lind on the front. Many artistic works have honoured or featured her.Anton Wallerstein composed the "Jenny Lind Polka" around 1850.[47] Many places and objects have been named for Lind, includingJenny Lind Island in Canada, theJenny Lind locomotive and aclipper ship, theUSSNightingale. An Australian schooner was namedJenny Lind in her honour. In 1857, it was wrecked in a creek on theQueensland coast; the creek was accordingly named Jenny Lind Creek.[48] A bronze statue of a seated Jenny Lind by Erik Rafael-Rådberg, dedicated in 1924, sits in the Framnäs section ofDjurgården island in Stockholm.[49][50]
In Britain, Goldschmidt's endowment of an infirmary for children in her honour inNorwich is perpetuated in its present form as theJenny Lind Children's Hospital of theNorfolk and Norwich University Hospital.[51] There is a Jenny Lind Park in the same city.[52] A chapel is named for Lind at theUniversity of Worcester City Campus.[53] A hotel and pub is named after her in the Old Town ofHastings,East Sussex.[54]Hereford County Hospital has a psychiatric ward named for Jenny Lind.[55] Adistrict inGlasgow is named after her.[56] InSutton, London, the pub "The Jenny Lind", next to Lind Road, has been renamed "The Nightingale".[57][58]
In the US, Lind is commemorated by street names inAmelia, Ohio;Fort Smith, Arkansas;New Bedford, Massachusetts;Taunton, Massachusetts;McKeesport, Pennsylvania;North Easton, Massachusetts;North Highlands, California andStanhope, New Jersey; and in the name ofJenny Lind, Arkansas. The town ofJenny Lind, California is likely named after her, although there are several tales about its naming.[59][60] An elementary school inMinneapolis, Minnesota,[61] and theJenny Lind Tower, a stone tower inNorth Truro, Massachusetts, are named for her.[62] She visitedMammoth Cave in central Kentucky in 1851, and a feature in the cave was named in her honour, called "Jenny Lind's Armchair".[63] Cottage-style spindled furniture is still named for her, especially Jenny Lind cribs and beds.[64]Andover, Illinois, has theJenny Lind Chapel, a Swedish Lutheran Chapel that Lind donated $1,500 to construct.[65] The Jenny Lind Wing is part of a student residence building atAugustana College,Rock Island, Illinois, which was founded by theSwedish Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North America in 1860.[66][67] The college also named a Jenny Lind Vocal Ensemble.[68]Jenny Lind soup is a soup named for her.[69] TheAmerican Swedish Historical Museum's Jenny Lind Room is devoted to her and the lasting effects of her widespread popularity in America. Her1850–1852 tour of America is a plot point in the 1980 musicalBarnum and the 2017 filmThe Greatest Showman, both of which include a fictionalised relationship between Lind and Barnum with "romantic undertones".[25]
Norwegian Air Shuttle's Boeing737-8JP registrationLN-DYG is calledJenny Lind and has a drawing of Lind on its tail.[70]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)En sittande bronsstaty öfver henne, mod. af E. Rafael-Rådberg, aftäcktes 11 maj 1924 vid Framnäs på k. Djurgården, Stockholm.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)(in Swedish)
