Geraldine Farrar
Encyclopedia
Geraldine Farrar was an American soprano
opera
singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".
, the daughter of baseball player Sidney Farrar
and his wife Henrietta Barnes. At 5 she began studying music in Boston
and by 14 was giving recitals. Later she studied voice with the American soprano Emma Thursby in New York
, in Paris
, and finally with the Italian baritone Francesco Graziani
in Berlin
. Farrar created a sensation at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod
's Faust
in 1901 and remained with the company for three years, during which time she continued her studies with famed German soprano Lilli Lehmann
. (She had been recommended to Lehmann by another famous soprano of the previous generation, Lillian Nordica
.). She appeared in the title rôles of Ambroise Thomas
' Mignon
and Jules Massenet
's Manon
, as well as Juliette
in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette
. Her admirers in Berlin included Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany
, with whom she is believed to have had a relationship beginning in 1903.
After three years with the Monte Carlo Opera, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera
in Romeo et Juliette on November 26, 1906. She appeared in the first Met performance of Giacomo Puccini
's Madama Butterfly
in 1907 and remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in nearly 500 performances. She developed a great popular following, especially among New York's young female opera-goers, who were known as "Gerry-flapper
s". Farrar created the title roles in Pietro Mascagni
's Amica
(Monte Carlo
, 1905), Puccini's Suor Angelica
(New York
, 1918), and Umberto Giordano
's Madame Sans-Gêne (New York, 1915) as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck
's Die Königskinder (New York, 1910)
She recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company
and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements. She also appeared in silent movie
s, which were filmed between opera seasons. Farrar starred in more than a dozen films from 1915 to 1920, including Cecil B. De Mille's 1915 adaptation of Georges Bizet
's opera Carmen
. One of her most notable screen roles was as Joan of Arc
in the 1917 film Joan the Woman
.
According to her biographer, Elizabeth Nash:
In 1960 Farrar was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
, in the music and film categories. However, the Los Angeles Times, which has documented and photographed every star as part of its ongoing Hollywood Star Walk project, was unable to locate the star honoring her film career. (Her music star is present and accounted for at 1711 Vine Street
.)
Farrar had a seven-year love affair with the Italian
conductor Arturo Toscanini
. Her ultimatum, that he leave his wife and children and marry her, resulted in Toscanini's abrupt resignation as principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in 1915. He returned to Italy. Farrar was close friends with the star tenor Enrico Caruso and there has been speculation that they too had a love affair, but no substantial evidence of this has surfaced. It is said that Caruso coined her motto: Farrar fara ("Farrar will do it").
Her marriage to cinema actor Lou Tellegen
on February 8, 1916 was the source of considerable scandal, terminating, as a result of her husband's numerous affairs, in a very public divorce in 1923. The circumstances of the divorce were brought again to public recollection by Tellegen's bizarre 1934 suicide in Hollywood.
Farrar retired from opera in 1922 at the age of 40. Her final performance was as Leoncavallo's Zazà
. By this stage, her voice was in premature decline due to overwork. According to the American music critic Henry Pleasants
, the author of The Great Singers from the Dawn of Opera to Our Own Time (first published 1967), she gave between 25 and 35 performances each season at the Met alone. They included 95 appearances as Madama Butterfly and 58 as Carmen in 16 seasons. The title role in Puccini's Tosca
, which she had added to her repertoire in 1909, was another one of her favourite Met parts.
Farrar continued to give recitals until 1931 and was briefly the intermission commentator for the radio broadcasts from the Met during the 1934-35 season. Her autobiography, Such Sweet Compulsion, published in 1938, was written in alternating chapters purporting to be her own words and those of her mother, with Mrs Farrar rather floridly recounting her daughter's many accomplishments.
Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut
of a heart attack
in 1967, aged 85, and was buried in Kensico Cemetery
in Valhalla, New York
. She had no children.
has written several murder mystery novels based on Geraldine Farrar, Enrico Caruso, and the Metropolitan Opera.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".
Early life and opera career
Farrar was born in Melrose, MassachusettsMelrose, Massachusetts
-Government:Robert J. Dolan is the mayor. Melrose is represented in the Massachusetts House of Representatives by Paul Brodeur . Katherine Clark is the state senator for wards 1 through 5 and Thomas McGee is the state senator for wards 6 and 7. Melrose is part of the seventh Congressional...
, the daughter of baseball player Sidney Farrar
Sid Farrar
Sidney Douglas Farrar , was a Major League Baseball player who played infielder from -. He would play for the Philadelphia Quakers and Philadelphia Athletics. He was the father of opera singer Geraldine Farrar.He lived in a farm house located in Ridgefield, Connecticut...
and his wife Henrietta Barnes. At 5 she began studying music in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and by 14 was giving recitals. Later she studied voice with the American soprano Emma Thursby in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and finally with the Italian baritone Francesco Graziani
Francesco Graziani (baritone)
Francesco Graziani was an Italian baritone and voice teacher. Graziani has been called the first modern baritone because his vocal attributes were well suited to the high-lying operatic parts composed by Giuseppe Verdi, with whom he worked.-Early life and career:Graziani was born in 1828 in Fermo,...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Farrar created a sensation at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
in 1901 and remained with the company for three years, during which time she continued her studies with famed German soprano Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility...
. (She had been recommended to Lehmann by another famous soprano of the previous generation, Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country....
.). She appeared in the title rôles of Ambroise Thomas
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...
' Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
and Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
's Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
, as well as Juliette
Juliet Capulet
Juliet is one of the title characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the other being Romeo. She is the daughter of old Capulet, head of the house of Capulet. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself....
in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
. Her admirers in Berlin included Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany
Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany
Frederick William Victor Augustus Ernest of the House of Hohenzollern was the last Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire. He was colloquially known as William or Wilhelm throughout Europe....
, with whom she is believed to have had a relationship beginning in 1903.
After three years with the Monte Carlo Opera, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in Romeo et Juliette on November 26, 1906. She appeared in the first Met performance of Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
in 1907 and remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in nearly 500 performances. She developed a great popular following, especially among New York's young female opera-goers, who were known as "Gerry-flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
s". Farrar created the title roles in Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's Amica
Amica (opera)
Amica is an opera in two acts by Pietro Mascagni, originally composed to a libretto by Paul Bérel . The only opera by Mascagni with a French libretto, it was an immediate success with both the audience and the critics on its opening night at the Théâtre du Casino in Monte-Carlo on 16 March 1905....
(Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, 1905), Puccini's Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
(New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, 1918), and Umberto Giordano
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
's Madame Sans-Gêne (New York, 1915) as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
's Die Königskinder (New York, 1910)
She recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements. She also appeared in silent movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
s, which were filmed between opera seasons. Farrar starred in more than a dozen films from 1915 to 1920, including Cecil B. De Mille's 1915 adaptation of Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. One of her most notable screen roles was as Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
in the 1917 film Joan the Woman
Joan the Woman
Joan the Woman is a 1916 silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc.It was the first film to use the Handschiegl Color Process for certain scenes...
.
According to her biographer, Elizabeth Nash:
Unlike most of the famous bel cantoBel cantoBel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
singers of the past who sacrificed dramatic action to tonal perfection, she was more interested in the emotional than in the purely lyrical aspects of her roles. According to Miss Farrar, until prime donne can combine the arts of Sarah BernhardtSarah BernhardtSarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
and Nellie MelbaNellie MelbaDame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
, dramatic ability is more essential than perfect singing in opera
In 1960 Farrar was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
, in the music and film categories. However, the Los Angeles Times, which has documented and photographed every star as part of its ongoing Hollywood Star Walk project, was unable to locate the star honoring her film career. (Her music star is present and accounted for at 1711 Vine Street
Vine Street
Vine is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself...
.)
Personal life
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
conductor Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
. Her ultimatum, that he leave his wife and children and marry her, resulted in Toscanini's abrupt resignation as principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in 1915. He returned to Italy. Farrar was close friends with the star tenor Enrico Caruso and there has been speculation that they too had a love affair, but no substantial evidence of this has surfaced. It is said that Caruso coined her motto: Farrar fara ("Farrar will do it").
Her marriage to cinema actor Lou Tellegen
Lou Tellegen
Lou Tellegen was a Dutch-born silent film and stage actor, director and screenwriter. -Early life:...
on February 8, 1916 was the source of considerable scandal, terminating, as a result of her husband's numerous affairs, in a very public divorce in 1923. The circumstances of the divorce were brought again to public recollection by Tellegen's bizarre 1934 suicide in Hollywood.
Farrar retired from opera in 1922 at the age of 40. Her final performance was as Leoncavallo's Zazà
Zazà
Zazà is an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo, with the libretto by the composer. Its première at the Teatro Lirico di Milano on November 10, 1900, starring Rosina Storchio as Zazà, Edoardo Garbin as Milio, Mario Sammarco as Cascart and Clorinda Pini-Corsi as Anaïde, and conducted by Arturo Toscanini,...
. By this stage, her voice was in premature decline due to overwork. According to the American music critic Henry Pleasants
Henry Pleasants
For the English music critic Henry Pleasants, see Henry Pleasants .Henry Clay Pleasants was a coal mining engineer and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War...
, the author of The Great Singers from the Dawn of Opera to Our Own Time (first published 1967), she gave between 25 and 35 performances each season at the Met alone. They included 95 appearances as Madama Butterfly and 58 as Carmen in 16 seasons. The title role in Puccini's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, which she had added to her repertoire in 1909, was another one of her favourite Met parts.
Farrar continued to give recitals until 1931 and was briefly the intermission commentator for the radio broadcasts from the Met during the 1934-35 season. Her autobiography, Such Sweet Compulsion, published in 1938, was written in alternating chapters purporting to be her own words and those of her mother, with Mrs Farrar rather floridly recounting her daughter's many accomplishments.
Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 24,638 at the 2010 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, is defined by the U.S...
of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in 1967, aged 85, and was buried in Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads which served the city...
in Valhalla, New York
Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
. She had no children.
Media
Fiction
The American author Barbara PaulBarbara Paul
Barbara Paul is an American writer of detective stories and science fiction. She was born in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1931 and was educated at Bowling Green State University and the University of Pittsburgh, among others....
has written several murder mystery novels based on Geraldine Farrar, Enrico Caruso, and the Metropolitan Opera.
Sources
- Nash, Elizabeth, Always First Class: The Career of Geraldine Farrar, University Press of America, 1981. ISBN 0-8191-1882-6
- New York Times, "Hail Farrar Queen as She Sings Adieu", 23 April 1922, p. 20
- Rosenthal, H. and Warrack, J., "Farrar, Geraldine", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 161. ISBN 0-19-311321-X
External links
- Geraldine Farrar, The Story of an American Singer available in many formats at gutenberg.org
- Geraldine Farrar at FlickrFlickrFlickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
- Geraldine Farrar, the Story of an American Singer, the full text of Geraldine Farrar's autobiography published Houghton Mifflin Co. in 1916.
- YouTube - Enrico Caruso & Geraldine Farrar - Vogliatemi Bene Geraldine Farrar and tenor Enrico Caruso sing Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Vogliatemi Bene from Madama ButterflyMadama ButterflyMadama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco... - Discography of Geraldine Farrar on Victor RecordsVictor Talking Machine CompanyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)
- Geraldine Farrar Memorabilia at the Newberry Library