Word: lilli
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Thus went Nordica's life-from a heyday that was richly spectacular to an ending deeply pathetic. She was born plain Lillian Norton in Farmington, Me. She sang in church choirs in Boston, toured with a brass band until she could afford to study opera in Italy. Like Lilli Lehmann, she began with light florid roles, won great success. But her ambition soared higher. She went to Bayreuth, worked with Wagner's widow, became a finished Wagnerian. As a prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera she conducted herself royally. For her audiences she had unfailing charm; for herself...
...easy to find, for most prima donnas impressed Wagner as being "silly, fastidious schoolgirls." He finally chose Amalie Materna, a big-chested Styrian with a grand manner and a zooming voice. At that first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 one of the Rhine maidens was a pretty young Jewess named Lilli Lehmann. Wagner wanted to adopt her but her mother, who knew the master well, objected. Lehmann was a light coloratura then and no one, least of all Wagner, suspected that she was soon to cultivate dramatic rôles and sing Brünnhilde...
...just as the late Lilli Lehmann will be remembered for Isolde, Garden for Mélisande, Farrar for Madame Butterfly, so Lotte Lehmann has one great rôle which she has made peculiarly her own. In Der Rosenkavalier her Marschallin has all the wisdom and pathos of Strauss's music. She loses in love but she never loses dignity. The season's plume is hers for one scene alone, where she sits before her mirror and realizes sadly and philosophically that she is growing...
...famed Lilli Lehmann who died six years...
...this great singer retiring at the peak of her career? "Because I like the sun best when it is high." Last week in Manhattan Death came to Marcella Sembrich who, save for Schumann Heink and Calvé, was the last survivor of an age which produced Patti, Lilli Lehmann, Melba, Nordica, Nilsson and the two de Reszkes...