Ernestine Schumann-Heink

Schumann-Heink in 1909

Ernestine Schumann-Heink (née Rössler)(15 June 1861 – 17 November 1936) was a celebrated Austrian, later American, operatic contralto, noted for the size, beauty, tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice.

Early life

Ernestine was born as Ernestine "Tini" Rössler to a German-speaking family in the town of Libeň (German: Lieben), Bohemia, Austrian Empire which is now part of the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Her father Hans Rössler was a shoe maker; while previously serving as an Austrian cavalry officer, he had been stationed in northern Italy (then an Austrian protectorate), where he met and married Charlotte Goldman, with whom he returned to Libeň. When Ernestine was three years old, the family moved to Verona. In 1866, at the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, the family moved to Prague, where she was schooled at the Ursuline Convent. At war's end, the Roesslers moved to Podgórze, now part of Kraków. The family moved again to Graz when Tini was thirteen. Here she met Marietta von LeClair, a retired opera singer who agreed to give her voice lessons.

Early career

In 1877, Rössler made her first professional performance, in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Graz, appearing with soprano Maria Wilt, and her operatic debut at Dresden's Royal Opera House on October 15, 1878 as Azucena in Il trovatore.

In 1882, she married Ernest Heink, secretary of the Semperoper, the Saxon State Opera Dresden, 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. One of their children, Ferdinand Schumann-Heink (1893–1958) was a prolific, though mostly unbilled Hollywood character actor.

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 Carmen, without rehearsal, which she did to great acclaim. Goetze, in a fit of pique, cancelled out of the role of Fidès in Le prophète, to be performed the following night, and was again replaced by Ernestine. Schumann-Heink replaced Goetze as Ortrud in Lohengrin the following evening, again without rehearsal, and was offered a ten-year contract.

International career

Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1916)

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 (gramophone) recordings in 1900. Many of them have been reissued on CD and continue to impress due to the quality of her rich voice and the excellence of her technique.

In 1905 she married William Rapp, Jr., her manager. They divorced in 1915.

In the midst of a legal battle in Germany over her late husband's estate, she filed U.S. naturalization papers on February 10, 1905, which became final on March 3, 1908. She and her new husband lived on Caldwell Mountain, near Montclair, New Jersey in her “Villa Fides” from April 1906 to December 1911; she then moved to 500 acres (2 km²) of farm land located just outside of San Diego, California (in an area known as Helix Hill in Grossmont), purchased by her in January 1910, where she would live for most of her life. Her residence there still stands.

In 1909 she created the role of Clytemnestra in debut of Richard Strauss' Elektra, of which she said she had no high opinion, calling it 'a fearful din'.^[1] 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.

Later years

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. She lost nearly all her assets in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and was forced to sing again even though she was 69 years old.

Her last performance at the Met was in 1931 performing Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen, aged 71. In her later years, she had a weekly radio program. In the movies of the 1930s, many a buxom opera singer/instructor/matron was modeled on her; see for instance 1937's Stage Door.

Death

Schumann-Heink died on 17 November 1936 of leukemia in Hollywood, California.^[2]

References

1. ^ Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera
2. ^ John Warrack and Ewan West, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera (1992)

• Kennedy, Michael (2006), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 985 pages, ISBN 0-19-861459-4
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5

External links

• Schumann-Heink on cantabile-subito.de Biography with photos and audio samples
• Ernestine Schumann-Heink and actress Bette Davis 1930s
• Discography of Ernestine Schumann-Heink on Victor Records from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)
• Schumann-Heink in Popular Science Dec. 1956 (p.248) - Savings Bond advertisement

Persondata
Name	Schumann-Heink, Ernestine
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 June 1861
Place of birth	Libeň
Date of death	17 November 1936
Place of death