Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n, later American, 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 contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, 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 GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking family in the town of Libeň
Liben
Libeň is a Cadastral area and district of Prague. It was connected to Prague in 1901.- People :* Herz Homberg, born here* Ernestine Schumann-Heink, born here* Bohumil Hrabal, lived here...
, Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
which is now part of the city of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. Her father Hans Rössler was a shoe maker
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
; while previously serving as an Austria
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
n 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
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
. In 1866, at the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War
Austro-Prussian War
The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...
, the family moved to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, where she was schooled at the Ursuline
Ursulines
The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order for women founded at Brescia, Italy, by Saint Angela de Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is Saint Ursula.-History:St Angela de Merici spent 17 years leading a...
Convent. At war's end, the Roesslers moved to Podgórze
Podgórze
Podgórze is a district of Kraków, Poland, situated on the right bank of the Vistula River. Initially a village at the foot of Lasota Hill was granted city status by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1784 and has become Royal Free City of Podgorze...
, now part of Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
. The family moved again to Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
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 BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
in Graz, appearing with soprano Maria Wilt, and her operatic debut at Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
's Royal Opera House on October 15, 1878 as Azucena in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
.
In 1882, she married Ernest Heink, secretary of the Semperoper
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
, 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
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. 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
Ferdinand Schumann-Heink
Ferdinand Schumann-Heink was a prolific character actor with over 65 films to his credit. He was the son of opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink....
(1893–1958) was a prolific, though mostly unbilled Hollywood character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
.
Ernest Heink was again thrown out of work when Saxons were banned from government positions, and departed to Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
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
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, without rehearsal, which she did to great acclaim. Goetze, in a fit of pique, cancelled out of the role of Fidès in Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...
, to be performed the following night, and was again replaced by Ernestine. Schumann-Heink replaced Goetze as Ortrud in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
the following evening, again without rehearsal, and was offered a ten-year contract.
International career
She performed with Gustav MahlerGustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and became well known for her performances of the works of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
at Bayreuth
Bayreuth Festspielhaus
The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
, singing at the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
s from 1896 to 1914.
She first sang 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...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1898, and performed with the Met regularly thereafter for decades.
Schumann-Heink made the first of her many phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
(gramophone
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
) 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
Montclair, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 38,977 people, 15,020 households, and 9,687 families residing in the township. The population density was 6,183.6 people per square mile . There were 15,531 housing units at an average density of 2,464.0 per square mile...
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
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
(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
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
, of which she said she had no high opinion, calling it 'a fearful din'. 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
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
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
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
submarine service, and stepson Walter Schumann and sons Henry Heink and George Washington Schumann, all in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
.
In 1915
1915 in film
The year 1915 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 8 : D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation premieres at Clune's Auditorium Los Angeles and breaks box office and film length records, running at a total length of 3 hrs 10 minutes.* June 18 : The Motion Picture Directors...
she appeared as herself in the early documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco
Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco
Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco is a 1915 short comedy-documentary film both starring and directed by Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand.-Production background:...
, which was directed by and starred Fatty Arbuckle.
Later years
In 1926 she first sang Silent Night (in both German and EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
) over the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
for Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
. 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
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
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
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
, 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
Stage Door
Stage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...
.
External links
- Schumann-Heink on cantabile-subito.de Biography with photos and audio samples
- http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=U778428INP&tab=details&caller=searchErnestine Schumann-Heink and actress Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
1930s] - Discography of Ernestine Schumann-Heink on Victor RecordsVictor Talking Machine CompanyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) - http://books.google.com/books?id=6CkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-PA248&lpg=RA1-PA248&dq=%22don't+worry,+I'm+not+going+to+sing%22&source=bl&ots=Xbduj1tDX-&sig=__FswnJEjTDZFIITYK4KCrmeS68&hl=en&ei=NpBZTb6ZEcKB8ga-paCKBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=%22don't%20worry%2C%20I'm%20not%20going%20to%20sing%22&f=falseSchumann-Heink in Popular Science Dec. 1956 (p.248) - Savings Bond advertisement]