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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Jenny Lind Biography LIND, Jenny (Madame Goldschmidt) (1820–87). A celebrated singer, popularly known as "the Swedish Nightingale." She was born at Stockholm, of humble parentage. Her wonderful voice was first noticed by an actress, through whose influence she was afterward admitted, at the age of nine, into the Stockholm Conservatory of Music, at which place she became the pupil of Crœlius and Berg. Through the school of singing attached to the Court Theatre, she was enabled to make her début (1838) as Agathe in Der Freischütz, in which her success was instantaneous. In 1841 she passed a period of nine months in study with Manuel Garcia in Paris. In Berlin (1844), where she had gone to study German, she sang the rôle of Vielka in Meyerbeer’s Feldlager in Schlesien, written specially for her. In April, 1845, she made an extensive tour throughout continental Europe, during which she met with unequaled success, her singing at the Leipzig Gewandhaus firmly establishing her reputation and securing for her an engagement for the Vienna Opera. Her first appearance in England was in 1847. From 1850 to 1852 she made a tour of the United States, which was as successful from the financial point of view as it was from the artistic. She was married in Boston in 1852 to Otto Goldschmidt, who was conducting the Bach Choir. After her return to Europe she lived for a few years at Dresden and afterward settled in London. Her last public appearance was at Düsseldorf at the festival of the Lower Rhenish Musical Society in 1870. As early as 1849 she retired from the operatic stage, devoting herself exclusively to concert singing. Possibly no other stage artist has been so popular throughout the world for her personal qualities as Jenny Lind. She was widely known for her generosity. Her voice was a soprano of bright, brilliant, thrilling, and sympathetic quality, her principal accomplishment being an unrivaled mastery of coloratura. She invariably improvised her own cadenzas, which were always in exquisite taste. She died at Malvern Wells. A bust of Jenny Lind was unveiled in Westminster Abbey in 1894. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 168. |