Eva Helene Nansen was a celebrated Norwegian mezzosoprano singer. She was also a pioneer of women's skiing

Skiing

Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....

.

Personal life

Born in Christiania

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, she was a daughter of priest and professor of zoology Michael Sars

Michael Sars

Michael Sars was a Norwegian theologian and biologist.-Biography:Sars was born in Bergen, Norway. He studied natural history and theology at Royal Frederick University from 1823 and completed a cand.theol. degree in 1828. For several years he taught at a number of different schools, firstly in...

 (1805–1869) and his wife Maren Sars

Maren Sars

Maren Cathrine Sars was a Norwegian socialite.-Personal life:She was born in Bergen as a daughter of priest Johan Ernst Welhaven and Else Margrethe Cammermeyer...

 (1811–1898), and sister to biologist Georg Ossian Sars and historian Ernst Sars

Ernst Sars

Johan Ernst Welhaven Sars was a Norwegian historian, publicist and editor. His main work was Udsigt over den norske Historie, four volumes issued from 1873 to 1891. He co-edited the magazines Nyt norsk Tidskrift from 1877 to 1878, and Nyt Tidsskrift from 1882 to 1887...

. Through her mother, she was a niece of Johan Sebastian

Johan Sebastian Welhaven

Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was a Norwegian author, poet, critic and art theorist.-Background:...

 and Elisabeth Welhaven

Elisabeth Welhaven

-Personal life:She was born in Bergen as a daughter of priest Johan Ernst Welhaven and Else Margrethe Cammermeyer . She was a sister of Johan Sebastian and Maren Sars....

, and a first cousin of architect Hjalmar Welhaven

Hjalmar Welhaven

Hjalmar Welhaven was a Norwegian architect, palace manager, and sportsman.-Personal life:Welhaven was born in Christiania as the son of writer Johan Sebastian Welhaven and Josephine Angelica Bidoluac. He married painter Margrethe Petersen Backer in 1876...

 and police chief Kristian Welhaven

Kristian Welhaven

Kristian Welhaven was a Norwegian police officer. He was chief of police of Oslo for 27 years, from 1927 to 1954. He was a leading force in establishing an organized Norwegian intelligence service before World War II, and in re-establishing it after the war...

.

In September 1889 she married Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

. Odd Nansen

Odd Nansen

Odd Nansen was a Norwegian architect, author, and humanitarian, credited with his humanitarian efforts on behalf of Jews in the early years of World War II and for being a founder of UNICEF.-Biography:...

, a notable architect, was their son. She died of pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 on 9 December 1907 at Lysaker

Lysaker

Lysaker is a section of and a postal code area of the Norwegian municipality of Bærum, just west of Oslo.Geographically, it is bordered by Lysakerelven on the east, which also forms the border to Oslo; Fornebu to the south; Stabekk to the west; and Jar to the north...

.

Career

Eva Sars studied singing for five years with her sister Mally and her brother-in-law, baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 singer and composer Thorvald Lammers

Thorvald Lammers

Thorvald Lammers was a Norwegian baritone singer, conductor, composer and biographer. He made his song début in Oslo in 1873. He founded the choir known as Korforeningen in 1879, and conducted it until 1909. Around 1900, Lammers was regarded as Norway's most important male singer...

. Her debut as an 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 singer came in 1881, in the Musikforeningen, a forerunner of the Oslo Philharmonic. She studied with Désirée Artôt

Désirée Artôt

Désirée Artôt was a Belgian soprano , who was famed in German and Italian opera and sang mainly in Germany...

 in Berlin in 1886 and 1887. She specialized in the romance

Romance (music)

The term romance has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of the...

 song form, and made her concert debut as a mezzosoprano romance singer in 1886. She appeared at numerous concerts, nationally and internationally, between 1880 and 1900. Included in her opera repertoire were "Elsa's Dream" from 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...

's 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...

and "Gretchen" in Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Scenes from Goethe's Faust

Scenes from Goethe's Faust

Written between 1844 and 1853, Szenen aus Goethes Faust has been described as the height of composer Robert Schumann's accomplishments in the realm of dramatic music....

. Her Scandinavian concert tours together with pianist Erika Lie Nissen

Erika Nissen

Erika Nissen, née Lie was a Norwegian pianist.She was born in Kongsvinger as the daughter of jurist Michael Strøm Lie and his wife Ingeborg Birgitte Røring Møinichen. She was the sister of Thomasine Lie, who married Jonas Lie...

 were met with great enthusiasm. She was regarded as one of Norway's most prominent romance singers. Her last public concert was in December 1899, when she performed the newly composed Haugtussa

Haugtussa (Grieg)

Haugtussa Opus 67, or The Mountain Maid, is a song cycle for soprano and piano composed by Edvard Grieg in 1895 and published in 1898. It is the only song cycle in his entire repertoire. The text was written by the Norwegian writer Arne Garborg, an excerpt from his book of poetry Haugtussa...

 song cycle, based by Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

 on Arne Garborg

Arne Garborg

Arne Garborg, born Aadne Eivindsson Garborg was a Norwegian writer.Garborg championed the use of Landsmål , as a literary language; he translated the Odyssey into it...

's poems.

She also contributed musically to gatherings in her mother's home, which before 1898 was a meeting place for liberals and intellectuals; it has been called "Christiania's first salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

".

Ski pioneer

Eva Sars (Nansen) was a competent skier. She and Cecilie Thoresen Krog

Cecilie Thoresen Krog

Ida Cecilie Thoresen Krog was a Norwegian feminist pioneer, and the first female university student in Norway...

 drew attention as the only girls at the Husebyrennet ski jumping event, when they arrived on skis. Later she came to have great influence on gaining the right for women to participate in winter sports on equal terms with men. During Easter 1892 she probably became the first woman to cross the Hardangervidda

Hardangervidda

The Hardangervidda is a mountain plateau in the Hardanger region of western Norway. It is the largest such plateau in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate and is the site of one of Norway's largest glaciers. Much of the plateau is protected as part of Hardangervidda National Park; it is a...

 mountain plateau on skis, when she did so with her husband Fridtjof Nansen. On this occasion she wore a somewhat challenging ski costume for the time, designed by Nansen and made by herself, in which her skirt only reached slightly below the knees. In the article Skiløbningen, published in the newspaper Verdens Gang in March 1893, she argued against those who moralized against female skiing.