Alice Nielsen
Encyclopedia
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
performer and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who had her own opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company and starred in several Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s.
Background
Her father, Ramsus, was a Danish troubadour from AarhusAarhus
Aarhus or Århus is the second-largest city in Denmark. The principal port of Denmark, Aarhus is on the east side of the peninsula of Jutland in the geographical center of Denmark...
. Her mother, Sara Kilroy, was an Irish musician from Donegal
Donegal
Donegal or Donegal Town is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. Its name, which was historically written in English as Dunnagall or Dunagall, translates from Irish as "stronghold of the foreigners" ....
. Rasmus and Sara met in South Bend, Indiana
South Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
where Sara studied music at St. Mary's, now part of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
. After Rasmus was injured in the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
where Alice was born. The Nielsens moved to Warrensburg, Missouri
Warrensburg, Missouri
Warrensburg is a city in Johnson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 16,340 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Johnson County. The Warrensburg Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Johnson County. It is home to the University of Central Missouri.-History:Warrensburg...
when Alice was two. Rasmus died a few years later. Sara moved to Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
with four surviving children.
Early career
Alice Nielsen roamed downtown Kansas City as a child singing. Outside the Kansas City ClubKansas City Club
The Kansas City Club, founded in 1882 and located in the Library District of Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, is the oldest existing gentlemen's club in Missouri. The Club began admitting women members in 1975. Along with the River Club on nearby Quality Hill, it is one of two surviving...
, she was heard by wealthy meat packer Jakob Dold and invited to sing at his daughter's birthday party. Alice was a hit. Dold sent her to represent Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
at a musicale at the Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. On her return, she was cast in a regional tour with Jules Grau's opera company for a season. When it ended, Nielsen joined St. Patrick's Church choir. She married the church organist and had a son. When the marriage turned violent she left for San Francisco on the vaudeville circuit, joined by Arthur Pryor
Arthur Pryor
Arthur Willard Pryor was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. In later life, he was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served on the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders during the 1930s.Pryor was born on the second floor of...
, performing with Burton Stanley and Pyke Opera. In San Francisco she became a soloist at the St. Patrick's, singing at The Wig-Wam and becoming a star in Balfe
Michael William Balfe
Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best-remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl.After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed 38 operas, almost 250 songs and other works...
's Satanella. Joining the Tivoli Opera Company, trained by Ida Valegra, Nielsen played 150 roles in two years. In 1895, Nielsen was hired by The Bostonians, a leading light opera company, which took her to New York City and national fame in 1896. In New York she became a pupil of Frederick Bristol
Frederick Bristol
Frederick E. Bristol was a celebrated American voice teacher who operated a private studios in Boston and New York City during the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century. He began teaching singing in 1869 and the 60th anniversary of his teaching career was recognized by an article...
.
Broadway
Alice Nielsen in 1900, age about 25, was America's biggest box-office draw. "We love our Nielsen, and proud she is an American", said the press. Touring 40,000 miles a year in North America between 1896 and 1901, her shows were Standing Room Only. In New York City, Nielsen became a Broadway star in Victor Herbert's The SerenadeThe Serenade
The Serenade is an operetta with music and lyrics by Victor Herbert, and book by Harry B. Smith. Produced by a troupe called "The Bostonians", it premiered on Broadway on March 16, 1897 at the Knickerbocker Theatre and ran initially for 79 performances...
. Herbert had written his sixth operetta for prima donna Alice Nielsen and her newly formed Alice Nielsen Opera Company. Nielsen toured North America for three years before reaching London in 1901 in The Fortune Teller
The Fortune Teller (operetta)
The Fortune Teller is an operetta in three acts written by Victor Herbert, with a libretto by Harry B. Smith. After a brief tryout in Toronto, it premiered on Broadway on September 26, 1898 at Wallack's Theatre and ran for 40 performances...
. Pushed by business conflicts, Nielsen abandoned her Company and left to study grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
, coached in the Italian repertoire by Enrico Bevignani
Enrico Bevignani
Enrico Modesto Bevignani was an Italian conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and impresario. He studied in his native city with Giuseppe Albanese, Salvatore Lavigna, Giuseppe Lillo and Giuseppe Staffa...
, who had coached Swedish operatic soprano, Christine Nilsson.
Opera
In the Spring of 1905, Nielsen returned to London's Covent GardenCovent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
to perform in several Mozart operas. She joined the roster of the San Carlo Opera Company
San Carlo Opera Company
The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different opera companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.-History:...
(SCOC), at that time a touring arm of the Teatro di San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe.Founded by the Bourbon Charles VII of Naples of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance...
of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
led by Henry Russell
Henry Russell (impresario)
Henry Russell was an English impresario, conductor, opera director, and singing teacher.-Biography:Henry Ronald Russell was born in London. He was the son of Henry Russell, a composer, pianist, and baritone, and his wife Hannah...
, the following fall for their guest Fall season in residence at Covent Garden with Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti
Antonio Scotti
Antonio Scotti was an Italian baritone. He was a principal artist of the New York Metropolitan Opera for more than 33 seasons, but also sang with great success at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Milan's La Scala.-Life:Antonio Scotti was born in Naples, Italy...
. Their La Bohème was regarded as a masterpiece of ensemble performance. After the SCOC's Fall season in London ended, the company became its own separate entity under the direction of Russell, severing ties with the opera house in Naples and moving its base of operations to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. Nielsen went with the company back to America and was involved in the company's annual North American tours and performances in Boston for several years.
In summer 1906, Nielsen joined Eleonora Duse
Eleonora Duse
-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...
and Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
in a joint program of related operas and dramas to open the Shuberts' Waldorf Theatre
Novello Theatre
The Novello Theatre is a West End theatre on Aldwych, in the City of Westminster.-History:The theatre was built as one of a pair with the Aldwych Theatre on either side of the Waldorf Hotel, both being designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre opened as the Waldorf Theatre on 22 May 1905, and was...
. One night Duse would act Camille, the next evening Nielsen would sing Traviata. That fall, Nielsen toured America with the SCOC presenting opera concerts featuring a shortened version of Donizetti's Don Pasquale. After a difficult debut in New York City, she became a hit by springtime in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
In winter 1907, Nielsen returned to America with Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country....
, Florencio Constantino
Florencio Constantino
Florencio Constantino was a Spanish operatic tenor.-Biography:He was born as Florencio Constantineau on April 9, 1869 in Bilbao, Spain. He moved to Argentina in 1889. He had a nervous breakdown and died on November 19, 1919 in Mexico City.-External links:...
and a full company for the SCOC's season at New Orleans' French Opera House
French Opera House
The French Opera House was an opera house in New Orleans. It was one of the city's landmarks from its opening in 1859 until it was destroyed by fire in 1919...
. During their subsequent North American tour, the group was considered by critics as superior to the touring Met Company, which had preceded Nielsen in LA, Chicago and Boston. Their Chicago season was sponsored by the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Association
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
.
At the end of the tour, in Boston's Park Theatre during March 1908, the SCOC presented a week of nightly grand opera performances featuring Nielsen and Constantino. The renditions of La Bohème and Faust at the Park Theatre created such a sensation that Boston's music patron Eben Jordan offered to build a new opera house for the SCOC's director Henry Russell and his company. The plan was quickly realized, and the newly formed Boston Opera Company
Boston Opera Company
The Boston Opera Company was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active from 1909 to 1915.-History:The company was founded in 1908 by Bostonian millionaire Eben Dyer Jordan, Jr. and impresario Henry Russell...
under Russell's leadership gave their first performance for the opening of the Boston Opera House
Boston Opera House (1909)
The Boston Opera House was an opera house located on Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. It opened in 1909 as the home of the Boston Opera Company and was demolished in 1958 after years of disuse....
on November 8, 1909 with a performance of La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
with Nordica in the title role. Nielsen and Nordica were the company's two leading sopranos during its six years of operation from 1909-1915.
She also debuted at The Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and Opéra de Montréal
Opéra de Montréal
Opéra de Montréal is an opera company in Montreal. It performs at the Place des Arts theatre complex in downtown Montreal, in the borough of Ville-Marie. It was founded in 1980...
. Her artist allies for the project included Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...
, Josef Urban and Anna Pavlova. Within six years, however, Boston Opera folded amid the turmoil of World War I. The magnificent building, designed by the team which created Symphony Hall, was located across from New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall and has since been demolished.
Tour
After Boston, Nielsen began a series of popular ChautauquaChautauqua
Chautauqua was an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with...
tours. These outdoor concert took place under a big tent, moving from town-to-town by rail. The circuit ranged from Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
to Chicago. Nielsen was the highest-paid performer on the circuit. The week-long Redpath Chautauqua series closed in each town with "Alice Nielsen Day."
During the 1910s, Nielsen sang in joint concerts with John McCormack and other artists at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
and in national tours. Her concerts consisted of art songs and arias, followed by dozens of encores of popular Celtic and parlor songs. A typical program was,
- "Two Japanese Songs" - Cadman
- "Lullaby" - Cyril ScottCyril ScottCyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...
- "Will o’ the Wisp" - Charles Gilbert Spross
- "Salvator Rosa" - Carlos Gomez
- "Pouquoi" - Saint-Saëns
- "Mandoline" - Debussy
- "Tu Nous Souriais" - Andre CapletAndré CapletAndré Caplet was a French composer and conductor now known primarily through his orchestrations of works by Claude Debussy.-Biography:...
- "A Toi" - BambergBambergBamberg is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. Bamberg is one of the few cities in Germany that was not destroyed by World War II bombings because of a nearby Artillery Factory that prevented planes from...
- "Down In The Forest" - Landon RonaldLandon RonaldSir Landon Ronald was an English conductor, composer, pianist, singing teacher and administrator...
- "But Lately In Dance" - Arensky
- "Oh! Haunting Memory" - Carrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who composed some 175 pieces of popular sheet music from the 1890s through the early 1940s....
- "Love Has Wings" - James Hotchkiss Rogers
- "Botschaft" and "Vergehliches Standchen" - Brahms
- "Solvejgs Leid" and "Ein Traum" - Grieg
- "La Tosca" - Puccini
Later years
Nielsen was a popular recording artist in sessions conducted by Arthur PryorArthur Pryor
Arthur Willard Pryor was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. In later life, he was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served on the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders during the 1930s.Pryor was born on the second floor of...
. She recorded seventy tracks between 1898–1928, most of the recordings made about 1910. Her big hit record was "Home, Sweet, Home", followed by "Un bel di", "Killarney" and "Last Rose of Summer." "I only sang the songs I wanted to sing", she stated in Colliers Magazine which published her autobiographic 1932 series Born To Sing.
After a brief return to Broadway in 1917's short-lived Belasco
Belasco
Belasco is a fictional supervillain in the Marvel Comics Universe. The character's first appearance was in Ka-Zar the Savage #11; he was created by Bruce Jones and Brent Anderson.-Fictional character biography:...
musical Kitty Darlin, with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
, who was fired three weeks before the NY opening, Nielsen married surgeon Le Roy Stoddard and moved to Bedford, New York
Bedford (town), New York
Bedford is a town in Westchester County, New York, USA. The population was 17,335 at the 2010 census.The Town of Bedford is located in the northeastern part of Westchester County, and contains the three hamlets of Bedford Hills, Bedford Village, and Katonah...
. By 1920, Nielsen's touring schedule was light. She last appeared with Boston Symphony in 1922. She sang with a reunited Alice Nielsen Company at the Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
memorial concert staged by ASCAP in 1925. In 1929 she divorced Stoddard. Nielsen continued singing occasional concerts until shortly before her death. In later years, she owned a house in Far Rockaway, Queens
Far Rockaway, Queens
Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens in the United States. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood starts at the Nassau County line and extends west to Beach 32nd Street. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community...
near her brother, who was the parish organist for St. Mary, Star of the Sea Church. Its cemetery is her final resting place.
Critical response
- Eleonora DuseEleonora Duse-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...
— "Her voice makes one dream and forget the realities of life." - San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
— She is chic and vivacious and filled with indefinable magnetism. - NY World— At the present moment she has no rival in her field.
- NY Evening World— America's greatest lyrical soprano.
- Chicago Post— Miss Nielsen is thoroughly a great singer, and showed clearly that she has attained the high place she holds in the musical world through sheer merit.
- Musical CourierMusical CourierThe Musical Courier was a 19th and 20th century American music trade publication which began publication in 1880 and became noted as preeminent in its field....
— It is difficult to imagine a more perfect Mimi than Miss Nielsen, who sings with a lovely lyric beauty of a voice that has not its counterpart anywhere.
Primary sources
- Wilson, Dall Alice Nielsen and the Gaiety Of Nations ( "Mu Phi Epsilon", January 1, 2006)
- Wilson, Dall Alice Nielsen and the Gayety Of Nations (dall wilson. 2008)
- McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women (Dover Publications New York. 1980)
Related Reading
- Gould, Neil Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life (Fordham University Press. 2008)