Background

Clara Kathleen Barnett Rogers was born in Cheltenham, England. Her father, John Barnett, a composer, was the son of Bernhard Beer, a Prussian watch-maker, who had settled in Bedford and had changed his name to Barnett.

Education

Clara Kathleen, growing up in a musical household, studied with her parents until 1856.

She then went to the Leipzig Conservatory where she studied piano with Moscheles and Plaidy, theory with Papperitz and Richter, ensemble with David and Rietz, and singing with Goetze. After further study in Berlin, and with San Giovanni and Bruni in Milan, she went to Turin

Career

she made her debut in Turin in 1863 as Isabella in Meyerbeer's Roberto il Diavolo under her stage-name, "Clara Doria. " Later she sang in Genoa, Leghorn, Florence, and Naples, in Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria di Rohan, in which she sang the title role, Maria Padilla, La Sonnambula, La Vestale, Rigoletto. Leaving Italy she went to London where she was prominent on the concert stage for five years. In 1871 she came to America with the Parepa-Rosa Opera Company, of which Tom Karl was the tenor. She made her debut on October 4, 1871, at the New York Academy of Music in The Bohemian Girl, and subsequently sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, and other soprano roles. She appeared in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in 1872-73 sang with the Maretzek company. Leaving the operatic stage, she went to Boston as the solo soprano of Trinity Church, and there, on April 24, 1878, she was married to a Boston lawyer, Henry Munroe Rogers. She continued active as a concert singer, teacher, composer, and author, and in 1902 became professor of singing at the New England Conservatory of Music. Her compositions include a number of albums of songs, some piano pieces, and a sonata for violin and piano. She also wrote a number of educational books on her art: The Philosophy of Singing (1893), Dreaming True (1899), My Voice and I (1910), English Diction, in Song and Speech (1912), Your Voice and You (1925) and Clearcut Speech in Song (1927). As an opera singer Clara Kathleen Rogers seems to have fallen short of the first rank, and there is probably much truth in Carlo Rosa's remark to her: "If you only had two more notes in your voice you would be one of the great artists of the world" (Memories, post, p. 395).

Works

More photos

• book

  • English Diction

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Clearcut speech in song, (The pocket music student)

    (Book Clearcut speech in song, (The pocket music student) ...)

  • The philosophy of singing

    (The philosophy of singing. This book, "The philosophy of ...)

Views

Quotations: "If you only had two more notes in your voice you would be one of the great artists of the world" (Memories, post, p. 395).

Connections

Leaving the operatic stage, she went to Boston as the solo soprano of Trinity Church, and there, on April 24, 1878, she was married to a Boston lawyer, Henry Munroe Rogers.

She died in Boston at the age of eighty-seven.

husband:

Henry

Leaving the operatic stage, she went to Boston as the solo soprano of Trinity Church, and there, on April 24, 1878, she was married to a Boston lawyer, Henry Munroe Rogers.