Alma Webster Powell

Background

She was born on November 20, 1874 in Elgin, Illinois, United States. She was the daughter of William Henry and Alma (Webster) Hall.

Education

She studied at the Girls' High School of Chicago and with private tutors in that city.

Forced by a nervous breakdown to abandon singing for a time, she took a course in law at New York University and was granted the degree of LL. B. in 1900. In 1910 she had secured the degree of Mus. B. at Columbia University, to which she added the degree of M. A. in 1911, and of Ph. D. , in the department of political science, in 1914.

Career

While she was still a young girl she went to New York to develop her vocal gifts, which were considerable. She secured a position as soprano in a leading church choir of New York and in time came to the notice of A. Judson Powell, an organist and piano manufacturer, who devoted himself to the development of her voice and ultimately married her.

In 1894 she went to Europe where, after studying with various masters, she made her début in opera at Frankfurt-am-Main in the difficult coloratura role of Queen of the Night, in Mozart's Magic Flute, May 16, 1895. She sang abroad until 1897, when she was engaged by the Damrosch-Ellis Opera Company. In that year she made a successful American début in the Mozart rôle in Philadelphia, and in 1898 she joined the Savage Opera Company, scoring successes in Martha.

She reentered the operatic field in Germany, singing at the Breslau Stadt-Theater, the royal opera houses of Berlin (Rosina, in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, 1901), in Munich, Dresden, and Prague, and at the Vienna Hofoper, appearing in Martha, Lakme, Faust, Don Giovanni, Traviata, and Lucia with notable success. In Prague, on April 6, 1902, she created the rôle of Renata in Eugenio Pirani's Das Hexenlied.

After three years of singing in concert and opera throughout Europe, she returned to the United States in 1904 and sang at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. She then toured the United States and Canada with success. In 1913 she became co-director with Eugenio Pirani of the Powell & Pirani Musical Institute in Brooklyn and after concertizing in the United States from 1914 to 1918, in 1920 assumed the directorship of the Powell Vocal Academy in Brooklyn. During the war she served in the motor corps of the National League for Women's Service.

She died in Mahwah, New Jersey, of a heart attack following a fracture of the hip.

Achievements

• Alma Powell made sucessful career as a singer both in America and Europe. She established the Powell Musical Institute in Brooklyn, and founded the Webster-Powell Opera Company. Besides, she was a co-director of the Powell & Pirani Musical Institute in Brooklyn, the author of Advanced School of Vocal Art, Black Blood, Music as a Human Need and other famous works.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Music as a human need: a plea for free national instruction in music

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

Connections

On April 16, 1891 she married A. Judson Powell.

Father:

William Henry Hall

Mother:

Alma (Webster) Hall

Spouse:

A. Judson Powell

coworker:

Eugenio Pirani