Lillian Nordica
| Lillian Nordica | |
|---|---|
Lillian Nordica
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lillian Allen Norton |
| Born |
December 12, 1857 Farmington, Maine |
| Died | May 10, 1914 (aged 56) Jakarta, Java |
| Genres | classical |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Years active | 1876–1914 |
| Labels | Edison |
Lillian Nordica (December 12, 1857 – May 10, 1914) was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country.
Nordica established herself as one of the foremost dramatic sopranos of the late 19th century and early 20th century due to the high quality of her powerful yet flexible voice and her ability to perform an unusually wide range of roles in the German, French and Italian operatic repertoires.
She was born Lillian Allen Norton in a small Cape Cod style farmhouse built by her grandfather on a hill in Farmington, Maine. The Nordica stage name was bestowed by an Italian maestro at the beginning of her operatic career. He convinced her that European opera-goers would not tolerate a diva with a plain sounding, Anglo-American name. The adopted name, Giglia Nordica, meant "Lily of the North" but she soon became known as "Madame Nordica" or simply as "Nordica".
In her youth, Nordica is said to have possessed an inherent fondness for music and the sounds of singing birds and running brooks. When she was eight her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts to continue the musical education of her sister Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina died before her 18th birthday. Family hopes were then pinned on Lillian and her musical education began soon thereafter. She trained as a singer at Boston, graduating from the New England Conservatory in that city at the age of 18. She had made her public debut at the conservatory as a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society.
Convinced that she could forge a successful career as a professional performer, she travelled to Italy and put a final bel canto polish on her vocalism through study in Milan. As Madame Nordica, she made her operatic debut at Brescia in 1879. She went on to assume a high rank among the international prima donnas of her era, appearing in many major musical venues in Western Europe and Russia. She sang for example at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1887-93 and performed at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany in 1894 as Elsa in Lohengrin. In her native America she was particularly associated with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where her frequent stage partner was the cultured Polish tenor Jean de Reszke. She sang at the Met from 1891 until 1910, with some breaks in between.
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