Ernestine Schumann-Heink was a Bohemian, later American prima donna and concert singer. She impressed due her rich vocal tone quality and impressive musical technique.
Background
Ernestine was born on June 15, 1861 in Lieben, near Prague (now Czech Republic), the eldest of four children of Hans Roessler, an Austrian army officer, and Charlotte (Goldman) Roessler. Her ancestry was partly Hungarian Jewish, her maternal grandmother having been of that faith, but her mother was educated in an Italian convent.
She began to sing when three years old. Her maternal grandmother, Leah Kohn, was the first to recognize the child's potential genius for singing and acting, but her family's poverty and frequent transfers from one army post to another gave her little opportunity for musical training. "I can never recall a time in those days, " she said long afterwards, "when I was not hungry. "
Education
Ernestine received her early education in the Ursuline convent at Prague. In 1874, when her father was transferred to Graz, she began to take singing lessons from Marietta von Leclair, a retired opera singer and the daughter of an officer in Roessler's regiment.
Career
In 1876 Ernestine Schumann-Heink made her first professional appearance in Graz, singing the contralto solo part in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Meanwhile Nina Kienzl, mother of the composer Wilhelm Kienzl, became interested in the young singer, and arrangements were made for an audition at the Court Opera in Vienna. But homeliness and a poverty-stricken appearance counted against her, and she was advised to give up the idea of a musical career.
Nevertheless, her voice had aroused interest, and she presently obtained another opportunity, at the Royal Opera in Dresden, where she received a three-year contract. Her debut there, on October 13, 1878, as Azucena in Il Trovatore was successful, but she sang only minor parts for the rest of her first season.
While in Dresden she also sang in concerts and at the Court Church, where she gained experience in sight reading which proved valuable in her opera career in enabling her to learn new roles quickly. Her career in Dresden ended abruptly after four seasons.
Finally the impresario of the Hamburg Opera, one Pollini, engaged her for small parts. But her salary was very low, and she was still desperately poor. The very favorable attention aroused in 1887 by a summer appearance at the Kroll Opera in Berlin did not help her situation. A permanent turn for the better, however, came in 1888, when she sang Carmen without rehearsal after the temperamental regular leading contralto at the Hamburg Opera had refused the assignment. This brought a new contract at 800 marks ($200) a month and, with guest appearances and concerts, a widening European reputation.
She made her London debut with the Hamburg company in 1892 and first sang in the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth in 1896. She accepted the invitation of Maurice Grau to come to the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Schumann-Heink's first American appearance with the Metropolitan Opera company was in Chicago on November 7, 1898, as Ortrud in Lohengrin, and this was also the vehicle of her New York debut, on January 9, 1899.
In 1903, after five seasons, she left the Metropolitan and, after a season devoted to concerts, turned to operetta, singing in Love's Lottery, with music by Julian Edwards, which opened in New York on October 3, 1904, and then went on the road. This step aroused some criticism, although light opera had been a part of her repertoire during her Hamburg days.
Schumann died in November 1904. In 1905 she became an American citizen. Finding that daily singing began to threaten her voice, she left the Love's Lottery cast in 1905. After several seasons of concerts and opera on both sides of the Atlantic she returned to the Metropolitan for Wagner roles in March 1907. In 1909 she created the role of Klytemnestra in Richard Strauss's Elektra in Dresden.
When World War I began in August 1914 she was singing in Bayreuth. She returned to the United States, where her concerts were interrupted by severe bronchitis in the winter of 1914-15. After the United States had entered the war, she took a notable part in patriotic activities, singing extensively for service men and afterwards continuing a constant interest in veterans' affairs.
Giving relatively few opera performances after 1914, Mme. Schumann-Heink made her farewell appearance at seventy, singing Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried at the Metropolitan on February 26 and March 11, 1932.
In 1935 she made her film debut, playing a vocal teacher in Here's to Romance. At seventy-four and already a great-grandmother, she won a success which promised a new phase in her long career, but illness prevented her from carrying out the film contract she had received.
Long a resident of California, she died the following year at Hollywood from an illness which had caused hemorrhages of the throat and lungs.
Achievements
Ernestine Schumann-Heink was a famous operatic contralto, noted for her tonal richness, flexibility and wide range of her voice. Her extremeny successful roles at the Metropolitan were mainly Wagnerian, but she also sang Fides in Meyerbeer's Le Prophete, which had been her second major role in Hamburg. Her concerts throughout the United States, including a golden jubilee tour in 1926-27, had been her principal activities that rised her reputation very high, maring her prima donna. She also was popular when sang on the radio and made a vaudeville tour.
On Memorial Day, May 30, 1938, a bronze tablet honoring Schumann-Heink was unveiled at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park, San Diego.
During World War I, Schumann-Heink supported the United States and its armed forces. She entertained the troops and raised money to help wounded veterans.
Personality
Schumann-Heink's voice was remarkable for its compass as well as for its quality and power, including both the soprano and contralto ranges. Later it lost its higher notes but remained one of the foremost contralto voices of the day.
In her later years in America her motherly appearance and her constant good humor and determination, as well as her singing, helped to win the warm affection of her fellow citizens.
Connections
In 1882 Ernestine married Ernst Heink, secretary in the Royal Opera's staff, and both were promptly dismissed for marrying without the Intendant's permission. Heink obtained a small custom-house post, and his wife continued her church singing, but this provided only a meager existence. Her first son, August, was born during these troubled days. Three more children, Charlotte, Henry, and Hans, were born, and Heink, whose debts had added to his wife's problems, left her to return to Dresden; a divorce followed.
Meanwhile in 1893, after divorcing Heink, she had married Paul Schumann, an actor and stage manager. The marriage was happy, and she also profited by his instruction in acting and dramatic interpretation. Two more children, Ferdinand and Marie were born. Her youngest son, George Washington, named in honor of the land of his birth, was born a month after her American debut.
She married her business manager, William Rapp, Jr. in 1905. This third marriage subsequently ended in divorce in 1914. August, her eldest son, was lost in the German submarine service in 1915; her younger sons were in the American forces.
