Emma Abbott was an American singer. She worked as an operatic soprano and impresario, and was famous for her clear voice.
Background
Emma Abbott was born on December 9, 1850 in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the daughter of Seth Abbott, son of Dyer Abbott, taverner of Concord, New Hampshire, and director of its Old South Choir. Seth married Almira Palmer of Woodstock, Vermont, and eventually established himself as a vocal and instrumental teacher in Chicago.
Education
Abbott studied in New York City, Paris and Milan.
Career
In 1859 Abbott made her debut in Peoria as a guitar-player and singer, before an audience of coal-miners, though she did not, as was later said, walk barefoot to the concert because of her family's extreme poverty. Giving lessons and singing in public, Emma in 1867 met Clara Louise Kellogg in Toledo, Ohio, and was by her encouraged to go to New York. There, about 1870, she studied with Errani, became the soprano of the Church of the Divine Paternity, and sang in concert with Ole Bull.
In 1872, with the aid of the congregation and the blessing of Henry Ward Beecher, she went to Europe to prepare herself for an operatic career, studying with Sangiovanni (Milan) and Delle Sedie (Paris), and appearing as Marie, in the Daughter of the Regiment, at Covent Garden, London, in 1876.
After singing with Mapleson she returned to New York and formed her own company, managed by Eugene Wetherell of New York. Thereafter, until her death in Salt Lake City, she toured the country, singing leading roles in the Abbott English Opera Company.
She began her operatic career with pietistic inhibitions which she was perforce obliged to drop by the way; tights in page roles were justified by being "worn modestly"; her conscience finally allowed her to sing the "immoral" part of Traviata as "a woman who tried to be good"; proper motivation also sanctioned the fervor of the "Abbott kiss, " renowned in its day.
Originally not very flexible, her voice, praised by Gounod, was pure and pleasant, but her singing was often mannered. Among her famous leads were those in Traviata, Romeo and Juliette, Paul and Virginia, Pinafore, Martha, and Sonnambula.
Clara Louise Kellogg, insists that Emma's "thirst for profits was the indirect means of her death, " a cold caught in a primitive dressing-room in Ogden, Utah Territory, developing into pneumonia. But the initial friendship between the singers had cooled, and the opinions of one prima donna regarding another must always be taken with a grain of salt.
Abbott continued performing up until her sudden death from pneumonia in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1891, aged 40.
Achievements
Personality
Abbott was sincere, kind-hearted, impetuous, and though she committed artistic solecisms, did her share in popularizing opera in the United States.
Quotes from others about the person
"Emma Abbott and her famous 'kiss' do not impress me. " - James Huneker.
"She manufactured a very fluent technic out of this unbending voice by the hardest kind of work. " - George P. Upton.