Jessie Bartlett Davis was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 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 and actress from Morris, Illinois

Morris, Illinois

Morris is a city in Grundy County, Illinois, United States. The population was 13,636 at the 2010 census.Morris is home to the Dresden Nuclear Power Plant, which provides a substantial portion of the electricity supply for the Chicago metropolitan area...

, who was billed as "America's Representative 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...

".

Opera and acting

She was born Jessie Fremont Bartlett, one of ten children of farmer and country schoolmaster

Schoolmaster

A schoolmaster, or simply master, once referred to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British public schools, but is generally obsolete elsewhere.The teacher in charge of a school is the headmaster...

 Elias Lyman Bartlett (b. 1821) and his wife Rachael Ann Conklin Bartlett (b. 1826). After Jessie and her older sister Arabelle "Belle" (1855–74) had become known as singers locally, they were approached by traveling managers and began touring along the West Coast of the United States

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

. Belle died shortly after a tour was arranged. Another sister, Josephine Bartlett Perry (1859–1910) also performed in theater, in the Chicago Ideal Opera Company.

Bartlett moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and went on a one-season tour with Caroline Richings. She studied voice in Chicago, singing in the choir of the Church of the Messiah, and her manager next convinced her to join the Chicago Church Choir Company.

In 1879, Bartlett made her debut in the opera H.M.S. Pinafore

H.M.S. Pinafore

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...

, in the role of Buttercup, in a troop managed by Col. Jack H. Haverly. The troop was managed on the road by Haverly employee, Will J. Davis, who Bartlett married in 1880. She spent several years with a number of opera companies before joining the new Boston Ideal Opera. She remained with this troupe until 1901, serving as its prima donna

Prima donna

Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...

.

Her most famous role was as Alan a-Dale in the 1890 opera Robin Hood by Reginald De Koven

Reginald de Koven

Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.-Biography:...

 and Clement Scott

Clement Scott

Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...

, in which she introduced Oh Promise Me

Oh Promise Me

Oh Promise Me is a song with music by Reginald De Koven and lyrics by Clement Scott. The song was written in 1887 and first published in 1889 as an art song. De Koven may have based the melody partly on an aria by Stanislao Gastaldon, "Musica Proibita". In 1890, De Koven wrote his most...

. She starred in other grand operas, including Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....

, Martha, The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)

The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....

, 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...

and Dinorah

Dinorah

Dinorah, originally Le pardon de Ploërmel , is an 1859 French opéra comique in three acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré...

. She performed with Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...

 in Faust while in the James Henry Mapleson

James Henry Mapleson

James Henry Mapleson was an English opera impresario, probably the leading figure instrumental in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York City in the second half of the 19th century.-Life and career:Mapleson was born in London, England...

 Opera company, and toured for one season in Europe.

On March 16, 1897, she opened on Broadway

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...

 in The Serenade

The 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...

, playing Dolores, and in 1898 recorded Don Jose of Sevilla, a duet

Duet (music)

A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...

 from The Serenade, with W. H. MacDonald. From October 19 to November 28, 1903, she appeared again on Broadway in a revival of Edward Jakobowski's 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:...

 Erminie

Erminie

Erminie is a comic opera in two acts composed by Edward Jakobowski with a libretto by Claxson Bellamy and Harry Paulton, based loosely on Charles Selby's 1834 Robert Macaire...

.

She appeared briefly in vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

, where she reportedly earned $1,000 per week.

Songwriter/Writer

Jessie Bartlett Davis released the parlor songs

Parlour music

Parlour music is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of middle class homes by amateur singers and pianists...

 collection It's Just Because I Love You So in 1900. The collection reflects the Gay Nineties

Gay Nineties

Gay Nineties is an American nostalgic term that refers to the decade of the 1890s. It is known in the UK as the Naughty Nineties, and refers there to the decade of supposedly decadent art by Aubrey Beardsley, the witty plays and trial of Oscar Wilde, society scandals and the beginning of the...

 attitude of the 1890s Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

. She helped Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Carrie 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....

 launch her songwriting career by volunteering to pay for the cost to publish Seven Songs: as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose, which included the classic wedding song "I Love You Truly

I Love You Truly

I Love You Truly, written by Carrie Jacobs Bond, is a parlor song. The song has been used at weddings since its release. It was the first song written by a woman to sell one million copies of sheet music...

."

She was also an author and wrote Only a Chorus Girl, other stories, and a number of poems.

Personal life

In 1880 she married William James Davis, a Chicago theatrical manager, who worked for the Frohman/Klaw/Erlanger theater syndicate and managed Chicago's Iroquois Theatre at the time of the 1903 fire. The Davis' had one son that survived infancy, William J. Davis Jr., who as an adult worked with his father in Chicago theater management. The couple had a home on Grand Avenue in Chicago and a summer home in Crown Point, Indiana

Crown Point, Indiana

As of the census of 2010, there were 27,317 people and 10,976 households in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 88.20% White, 6.30% African American, 0.20% Native American, 1.80% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 1.90% from other races, and 1.60% from two or more races...

, Ellendale, where they raised trotting horses, collies and fox terriers. Author and poet Eugene Field

Eugene Field

Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays.-Biography:...

 was a particular friend and wrote several newspaper columns featuring Jessie and Will. Other friends of the Davis' included playwright George Ade

George Ade

George Ade was an American writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright.-Biography:Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, one of seven children raised by John and Adaline Ade. While attending Purdue University, he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity...

, newspaper cartoonist John T. McCutcheon

John T. McCutcheon

John Tinney McCutcheon was an American newspaper political cartoonist who was known as the "Dean of American Cartoonists"....

, detective William A. Pinkerton and Civil War hero, Orville T. Chamberlain.

Jessie died unexpectedly of Bright's disease

Bright's disease

Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....

. She is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

At the World's Columbian Exposition

World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...

 of 1893, the Fine Arts Building

Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)

The Museum of Science and Industry is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA in Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood adjacent to Lake Michigan. It is housed in the former Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...

included in its list of exhibits "Bust of Mrs. Jessie Bartlett Davis (Marble) (Lent by Mr. Davis, Chicago)", by Aloys Loeher.

External links

• portrait of Jessie Bartlett Davis in costume