Lillian Nordica

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Lillian Nordica (December 12, 1857-May 10, 1914), American operatic soprano, nee Norton, was America's greatest dramatic soprano of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an era commonly referred to as the "Golden Age" of opera. She was born in a small farmhouse built by her grandfather on a hill in Farmington, Maine.

The Nordica pseudonym was bestowed by an Italian maestro at the beginning of her operatic career. He convinced her that Europeans would not tolerate an American name on the stage. The adopted name Giglia Nordica meant Lily of the North and she soon became known as Madame Nordica.

As a youth Nordica possessed an inherent fondness for music. She loved the sounds of singing birds and running brooks. When she was eight her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts to continue the musical education of her sister Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina died before her 18th birthday. Family hopes were then pinned on Lillian and her musical education began soon thereafter. She trained as a singer at Boston, and later at Milan. She graduated from the New England Conservatory in Boston with the highest honors at the age of 18. She made her debut at the Conservatory as a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society.

As Madame Nordica she made her operatic debut at Brescia in 1879, and from that time took high rank among the prima donnas, appearing in all the principal capitals in Europe, including London, and at the Bayreuth Festival. In her native America she was particularly associated with the Metropolitan Opera, where her frequent stage partner was the cultured Polish tenor Jean de Reszke.

Like many singers of her day, she had a bitter run-in with the imperious Australian diva Nellie Melba, who for one season insisted on "exclusive rights" to the part of Brunnhilde, despite the inappropriateness of her lyrical voice for the part. Nordica was enraged, but ended up with the upper hand: Brunnhilde was a disaster for Melba, and Nordica's role as a premier Wagnerian soprano was restored.

Lillian Nordica had a huge, silver-toned and remarkably agile dramatic soprano voice which she was prepared to use unstintingly. An ambitious, adventurous artist, she had an enormously varied repertoire which included, among other works, Aida, Brunnhilde in Wagner's Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, La Gioconda, Faust, Les Huguenots, Mignon and Le Nozze di Figaro. Unfortunately, the records that she made for the Columbia company came late in her career and are of poor technical quality. Therefore they do not show her at her best. Nevertheless, they indicate her considerable range as a singer, for she is able to perform both coloratura arias (Io son Titania) and Wagnerian dramatic solos (Mild und leise). Nordica also can be heard briefly in some of the Mapleson cylinders that were recorded during actual performances at the Metropolitan Opera in the early 1900s. The sound of these cylinders is primitive but the size and splendour of Nordica's voice can be better appreciated as it rings out in a theatre acoustic. A complete CD of her gramophone and cylinder recordings was released by Marston records in 2003.

The Lillian Nordica biography, Yankee Diva, written by Ira Glackens, goes into great detail both about Nordica's successful operatic career and her disastrous personal life. Nordica married three times, (the middle one being to a minimally talented tenor named Zoltan Dome). Her third marriage was to a wealthy New York banker, George W. Young. All the marriages were unhappy.

In 1913, she embarked on a recital tour to Australia. She nearly missed the ship leaving Sydney on her return, but wired the captain asking him to wait for her. It would prove to be a fatal mistake. The Tasman hit a coral reef, where it remained for three days, and Nordica suffered from exposure from which she never recovered. She lingered for months, seeming to improve, only to fail again. She died on May 10, 1914, on the island of Java. Her death was a result of nervous prostration and pneumonia.

She wrote a treatise called Hints to Singers which is appended at the end of Yankee Diva.

[edit] Media

[edit] References

This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Kennebec Maine Journal, Music, Augusta, Maine, Historical Series, VI of VI, October 23, 1976, Page 7.
• Syracuse Herald, Lillian Nordica's Voice Is Stilled by Death on Other Side of the Globe, Far From Her Friends, Monday Evening, May 11, 1914, Page 5.

[edit] External links

• Marston Records has reissued Lillian Nordica recordings