Olive Fremstad

Olive Fremstad (14 March 1871 – 21 April 1951) was the stage name of Anna Olivia Rundquist, a celebrated Swedish-American opera diva who sang in both the mezzo-soprano and soprano ranges.

Born in , she was adopted by an American couple living in Minnesota, taking on their surname of Fremstad. She received her early education and musical training in Christiania, Norway. When she was 12 years of age her parents moved to America, settling in Minneapolis. Even before leaving Christiania, her progress on the piano had been such that she had appeared as an infant prodigy. She began her vocal training in New York City with Frederick Bristol in 1890 after singing in church choirs, then studied in Berlin with Lilli Lehmann before making her operatic debut as a mezzo-soprano as Azucena in Verdi's Il trovatore at the Cologne Opera in 1895. She remained there for at least three years, before going on to Vienna, Munich, Bayreuth and London.

She appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1903 until 1914, specializing in Wagnerian roles. By that time she was singing as a dramatic soprano. Fremstad appeared before the public 351 times as a member of the Met's stellar roster, most frequently as Venus in Tannhäuser, Kundry in Parsifal, Sieglinde, Isolde and Elsa in Lohengrin. American audiences never warmed much to her interpretation of the title role in Bizet's Carmen, but she had sung the role opposite Enrico Caruso in San Francisco the night before the city was wrecked by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and ensuing fire. (She and Caruso escaped the disaster unharmed.)

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