Emma Eames
| Emma Eames | |
|---|---|
Emma Eames, as photographed in 1892
|
|
| Born |
August 13, 1865 Shanghai, China |
| Died | June 13, 1952 (aged 86) Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Soprano |
| Spouse(s) |
Julian Russell Story (m. 1891; div. 1907) Emilio de Gogorza (m. 1911) |
Emma Eames (August 13, 1865 – June 13, 1952) was an American soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.
The daughter of an international lawyer, Eames was born in Shanghai, China and raised in Portland and Bath in the American state of Maine. (Her surname, incidentally, was pronounced ames, not eemes.) The promising quality of her voice was recognised early by her mother and she received singing lessons as a small girl. She attended school in Boston where she studied singing with Charles R. Adams.
Later she took voice lessons in Paris with the highly successful but autocratic teacher of bel canto sopranos, Mathilde Marchesi. It was noted in the press at the time of Marchesi's death in 1913 that Eames had praised the tuition she received from that teacher. Subsequently, however, she chose to downplay Marchesi's influence on her vocal technique.
Eames made her professional operatic debut in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Opéra's headquarters, the Palais Garnier, in 1889. She would perform the role of Juliette many other times during the next two years, while adding other leading French-opera parts to her repertoire. As early as November 1889, The Times newspaper called her "the favourite cantatrice of the Opera". She left the company in 1891, however, for personal reasons. (She agreed to sing again in Paris in 1904, in a benefit performance of Puccini's Tosca, but this production was staged at La Salle Favart rather than the Palais Garnier.)
...
Wikipedia