Louise Beatty Homer was an American singer. She was active as an operatic contralto in concert halls and opera houses.
Background
Louise Beatty Homer was born Louise Dilworth Beatty on April 30, 1871 in Shadyside, Pennsylvania, United States. She was the third daughter and fourth of eight children of William Trimble Beatty and Sarah Colwell (Fulton) Beatty. The father was a Presbyterian clergyman; the mother's family included a Revolutionary War officer and the inventor Robert Fulton. When Louise was seven, the Beattys moved to Minneapolis. After her husband's death in 1882 Sarah Beatty and the children moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Education
Homer graduated from high school with honors, trained as a stenographer, and worked first in the office of a Quaker school and then as a court stenographer, at the same time studying voice in Philadelphia with Abbie Whinnery, an able oratorio singer of an earlier day, and Alice Groff. At the age of twenty-one Louise resolved to make music her career and went to Boston, where she studied voice with William L. Whitney and musical theory with Sidney Homer.
Five honorary degrees were conferred on her: Tufts, 1925; Smith, 1932; Russell Sage, 1932; Middlebury, 1934; and Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), 1933.
Career
At the First Universalist Church, Homer sang in what was then considered Boston's finest choir, directed by George Chadwick. Sidney Homer, six years her senior, took his attractive pupil to her first opera. Borrowing a sum of money, the couple went to Paris in 1896, where Homer, as she was thereafter known, studied voice with Fidèle Koenig and stage movement with Paul Lhérie, making her first appearance in concert under Vincent d'Indy.
A successful debut as Leonora in La Favorita at Vichy (June 5, 1898) led to other European engagements--the winter season at Angers in 1898-1899; performances at Covent Garden, London, beginning the following May; eight months at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, the next winter; a second engagement at Covent Garden for the spring season of 1900--in the course of which the young artist gained much valuable experience. During this period Homer's voice increased in volume and range; naturally well placed, it was full and rich, evenly distributed, with a wide compass, having neither the sepulchral tones in the lower register nor the shrillness in the upper range that are common to many contraltos.
Although she seemed not to have a strong dramatic temperament, her voice had a powerful impact. She sang fluently in Italian, German, and French, often the same role in each. Given a three-year contract by Maurice Grau, the Metropolitan Opera Company's general manager, Homer made her American debut on November 14, 1900, on tour in San Francisco, singing Amneris in Aida. She opened in New York on December 22 in the same role. She was thus successfully launched on a long career that embraced many of the Metropolitan's most memorable performances. She sang Maddalena in Rigoletto at Enrico Caruso's American debut in 1903. She was Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, with Geraldine Farrar, Caruso, and Antonio Scotti, at the Metropolitan's first performance (not the American premiere) on February 11, 1907, in the presence of the composer; and was Amneris at Toscanini's first appearence in America on November 16, 1908.
While Azucena, Orfeo, and Amneris were her favorite roles, she was qualified for every contralto part in the standard repertoire. Public demand was greatest for her Dalila, with Caruso singing Samson. She learned Wagnerian roles quickly, singing Brangane in December 1901 in San Francisco, Venus in Tannhauser in St. Louis in 1901 without orchestral rehearsal, and Fricka on one day's notice in 1903. Toscanini showed his admiration by inviting her to sing Orfeo in the Metropolitan's revival in New York and on tour in Paris in 1909-1910.
By virtue of her artistry as Amneris, Homer stilled a demonstration in Paris in support of a French singer who her admirers felt had been slighted in favor of the American. These accomplishments would have rendered Homer's career no more celebrated than that of other singers of genuine ability had it not been for her early and continuing association with the phonograph. By means of the new invention, music of high quality entered millions of American homes, and the name Louise Homer was soon widely known. Her recordings, beginning in 1902 with cylinder recordings of quartets, covered an extensive range of arias from works by Handel, Gluck, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Verdi, and others, as well as ensembles with Caruso, Scotti, Farrar, Johanna Gadski, Emma Eames, and Bessie Abott. By 1909 she had made fifty-one recordings. It was in the next decade, however, that her record sales under the Victor label, often in duet with Alma Gluck, soared into tens of thousands. A copy of the Victor Talking Machine Company's royalty statement for 1919 may be taken as representative: 332, 576 recordings were sold of sixty-nine selections available (including ensembles), of which twenty-five were operatic; nine were from oratorios; eight were hymns; and the remainder included folk songs and ballads, which by the simplicity of their message had the widest appeal. Few recording artists sustained so great a popularity. Increasing fame led her to concert halls in major cities, where her radiant presence established a warm rapport with audiences, who greeted return engagements with the same enthusiasm as the first; in recitals, she invariably included a group of her husband's songs. For festivals, such as those in Cincinnati and Worcester, she was available for the great oratorios, with their vital sacred themes.
Each season demanded extensive--and exhausting--tours under the scrutiny of the press, but Homer stood forth as a splendid example of the American singer, with unblemished personal and domestic virtues. Her years before the public strongly parallel those of Annie Louise Cary, a generation earlier. While relishing standard roles, Homer also sang in new works: the first Metropolitan productions of Paderewski's Manru (February 14, 1902) and Humperdinck's Konigskinder (December 28, 1910). Among the American productions in which she appeared were Frederick Converse's Pipe of Desire (March 18, 1910) and Horatio Parker's Mona (March 14, 1912). Not often lasting successes, they were worthwhile efforts.
She also sang in a revival of Boeildieu's La Dame Blanche, which "achieved a run of one consecutive performance. " Following her last regular season with the Metropolitan (1918-1919), Homer sang three seasons with the Chicago Opera and included guest performances there in concert tours from 1922-1926. Similarly she sang with the San Francisco and Los Angeles opera companies in 1926. A return to the Metropolitan as Amneris in December 1927 was warmly received. Her final appearances there were in Il Trovatore in December 1928 and March 1929. Homer's career, begun in the days of Jean and Edouard de Reszke and Nordica, spanned those of Caruso and Farrar and ended in those of Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Rosa Ponselle. Associates in the contralto roster included Ernestine Schumann-Heink (debut 1899), Margarete Matzenauer (debut 1911), and Marion Telva (debut 1920). The New York Times noted in 1947 that Homer had been trained "in a school that concentrated on diction, musical compass and refinement, and, equally important, that stressed dramatic power. The operatic realm has known few contraltos who could do justice as she could to such roles as Amneris, Suzuki, Azucena and Dalila. " An editorial added, "Hers was long the voice of America. "
In later years the Homers spent summers in Bolton, New York, and, after retirement, winters in Winter Park, Fla. Interested in various religious beliefs and generous in many humanitarian causes, she professed no adherence to any particular orthodoxy. Her retirement was occasioned by the state of her husband's health and not by any impairment of her voice. Homer died of a heart ailment in Winter Park and was buried in Bolton. Her husband survived until July 10, 1953.
Achievements
Homer is best remembered as an opera singer who became one of the leading operatic contraltos of the first quarter of the 20th century. She developed an unusually rich contralto voice and was noted for her roles as Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, Orfeo in Christoph Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, and Dalila in Camille Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila.
Combining an ability to learn quickly with profound musicianship, Homer was valued as a dependable associate in an era of unpredictable divas, missing only two scheduled performances in a career that spanned the administrations of Grau, Conried, and Gatti-Casazza.
In 1923 a League of Women Voters poll chose Homer one of Twelve Eminent American Women.
Connections
On January 9, 1895, Homer married Sidney Homer, and later they and began housekeeping on Boylston Street, where their first child was born. The Homers had six children.
