Signe Hebbe

Signe Amanda Georgina Hebbe (30 July 1837 – 14 February, 1925), was a Swedish soprano, actress, and theatre pedagogue.

Signe Hebbe was born in Värnamo to the journalist Vendela Hebbe and Clemens Hebbe. In 1848, at the age of eleven, she studied music at the Lindblad pianoschool, at the school of the Royal Swedish Opera and for Karolina Bock. From 1852–1854, she studied at the conservatory in Berlin. She debuted in a dramatic part in the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1855, but did not succeed in spoken drama and continued to study singing.

She was accepted at the Paris conservatory in 1856, where she became the first singer from Scandinavia to receive a medal. She instructed in plastic at the conservatory and was the teacher of Sarah Bernhardt when she was the replacement of Élie during his absence in 1860. Francesco Lamperti developed her singing in Milan and studied Adelaide Ristori and Ernesto Rossi for her dramatic talent.

She sang in Lyon from1861 and 1862, debuted in Frankfurt and was employed at the court theatre of Mannheim, Nationaltheater Mannheim. Between 1864 and 1879, she toured Europe and sang in Stockholm, Karlsruhe, Köpenhamn, Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, Warszawa, Geneva, Milano, Palermo, Helsingfors, and Oslo. As an actor, she was criticized for her way of acting, as she did not like to interpret the female parts as weak, but wanted to give them a more independent interpretation than the Victorian age wanted to view women.

...
Wikipedia