Johanna Maria Lind better known as
Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the
"Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in
sopranoA 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...
roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily popular concert tour of America beginning in 1850. She was a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of MusicThe Royal Swedish Academy of Music or Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien, founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...
from 1840.
Lind became famous after her performance in
Der FreischützDer Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
in Sweden in 1838. Within a few years, she had suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacher Manuel García saved her voice. She was in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, becoming the protégée of
Felix MendelssohnJakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29.
In 1850, Lind went to America at the invitation of the showman
P. T. BarnumPhineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
. She gave 93 large-scale concerts for him and then continued to tour under her own management. She earned more than $350,000 from these concerts, donating the proceeds to charities, principally the endowment of free schools in Sweden. With her new husband,
Otto GoldschmidtOtto Moritz David Goldschmidt was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces...
, she returned to Europe in 1852 where she had three children and gave occasional concerts over the next two decades, settling in England in 1855. From 1882, for some years, she was a professor of singing at the
Royal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in London.
Early years
Born in Klara, in central Stockholm, Lind was the extramarital daughter of Niclas Jonas Lind (1798–1858), a bookkeeper, and Anne-Marie Fellborg (1793–1856), a schoolteacher. Lind's mother had divorced her first husband for adultery but, for religious reasons, refused to remarry until after his death in 1834. Lind's parents married when she was fourteen.
Lind's mother ran a day school for girls out of her home. When Lind was about nine years old, her singing was overheard by the maid of Mademoiselle Lundberg, the principal dancer at the
Royal Swedish OperaKungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...
. The maid, astounded by Lind's extraordinary voice, returned the next day with Lundberg, who arranged an audition and helped her gain admission to the
acting schoolDramatens elevskola, i.e. Kungliga Dramatiska Teaterns Elevskola, or in Eng: The Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school, was the acting school of Sweden's national stage, The Royal Dramatic Theatre, and for many years seen as the foremost theatre school and drama education for Swedish stage actors...
of the
Royal Dramatic TheatreThe Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages....
, where she studied with Karl Magnus Craelius, the singing master at the theatre.
Lind began to sing onstage when she was ten. She had a vocal crisis at the age of 12 and had to stop singing for a time, but recovered. Her first great role was Agathe in
WeberCarl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
's
Der FreischützDer Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
in 1838 at the Royal Swedish Opera. At age 20 she was a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of MusicThe Royal Swedish Academy of Music or Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien, founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...
and
court singerHovsångare , literally Court Singer, is a title awarded by the Swedish monarch to a singer who, by their vocal art, has contributed to the international standing of Swedish singing. The formal title was introduced by King Gustav III of Sweden in 1773, with the first recipients being Elisabeth Olin...
to the King of Sweden and Norway. Her voice became seriously damaged by overuse and untrained singing technique, but her career was saved by the singing teacher Manuel García, with whom she studied in Paris from 1841 to 1843. So damaged was her voice that he insisted that she should not sing at all for three months, to allow her vocal cords to recover, before he started to teach her a secure vocal technique.
After Lind had been with García for a year, the composer
Giacomo MeyerbeerGiacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
, an early and faithful admirer of her talent, arranged an audition for her at the
OpéraThe Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
in Paris, but she was rejected. The biographer Francis Rogers concludes that Lind strongly resented the rebuff: when she became an international star, she always refused invitations to sing at the Paris Opéra. Lind returned to the Stockholm Opera, greatly improved as a singer by García's training. She toured Denmark where, in 1843,
Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
met and fell in love with her. Although the two became good friends, she did not reciprocate his romantic feelings. She is believed to have inspired three of his fairy tales: "Beneath the Pillar", "
The Angel"The Angel" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about an angel and a dead child gathering flowers to carry to Heaven. The tale was first published with three others in New Fairy Tales by C.A. Reitzel in November 1843. The four tales were received by the Danish critics with great...
" and "The Nightingale". He wrote, "No book or personality whatever has exerted a more ennobling influence on me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind. For me she opened the sanctuary of art." The biographer Carol Rosen believes that after Lind rejected Andersen as a suitor, he portrayed her as
The Snow QueenThe Snow Queen is a fairy tale by author Hans Christian Andersen . The tale was first published in 1845, and centers on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by a little boy and girl, Kai and Gerda....
with a heart of ice.
German and British success
In December 1844, through Meyerbeer's influence, Lind was engaged to sing the title role in
BelliniVincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's opera
NormaNorma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
in Berlin. This led to more engagements in opera houses throughout Germany and Austria, although such was her success in Berlin that she continued there for four months before leaving for other cities. Among her admirers were
Robert SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
,
Hector BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
and, most importantly for her,
Felix MendelssohnJakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. He wrote, "Jenny Lind has fairly enchanted me; she is unique in her way, and her song with two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard". This number, from Meyerbeer's
Ein Feldlager in SchlesienEin Feldlager in Schlesien is a Singspiel in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer with a German-language libretto by Ludwig Rellstab after Eugène Scribe's Le champ de Silésie. It was first performed at the Hofoper, Berlin, on 7 December 1844; a version with a revised libretto by Charlotte...
(1844; a role written for Lind but not premiered by her), became one of the songs most associated with Lind, and she was called on to sing it wherever she performed in concert. Her operatic repertoire comprised the title roles in
Lucia di LammermoorLucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
,
Maria di RohanMaria di Rohan is a melodramma tragico, or tragic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written by Salvadore Cammarano, after Lockroy and Edmond Badon's Un duel sous le cardinal de Richelieu, which had played in Paris in 1832.- Roles :- Synopsis :The comte de...
,
Norma,
La sonnambulaLa sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
and
La vestaleLa vestale is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy. It was first performed at the Paris Opéra in Paris on December 15, 1807 and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece...
, as well as Susanna in
The Marriage of FigaroLe nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
, Adina in
L'elisir d'amoreL'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
and Alice in
Robert le diableRobert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...
. About this time she became known as "the Swedish Nightingale". In December 1845, the day after her debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus under the baton of Mendelssohn, she sang without fee for a charity concert in aid of the Orchestra Widows' Fund. Her devotion and generosity to charitable causes remained a key aspect of her career and greatly enhanced her international popularity even among the unmusical.
After a successful season in Vienna, where she was mobbed by admirers and feted by the Imperial Family, Lind travelled to London in 1847, where her first performance, at
Her Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
on 4 May, was attended by Queen Victoria.
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote the next day, "We have had frequent experience of the excitement appertaining to "first nights", but we may safely say, and our opinion will be backed by several hundreds of Her Majesty's subjects, that we never witnessed such a scene of enthusiasm as that displayed last night on the occasion of Mademoiselle Jenny Lind's
début as Alice in an Italian version of
Robert le Diable."
In London, Lind's close friendship with Mendelssohn continued. There has been strong speculation that their relationship was more than friendship, but no conclusive evidence has been published in support of this supposition. Mendelssohn was present at Lind's London debut, and his friend, the critic
H. F. ChorleyHenry Fothergill Chorley was an English literary, art and music critic and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics....
, who was with him, wrote "I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mlle. Lind's genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success". Mendelssohn worked with Lind on many occasions and wrote the beginnings of an opera,
Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of the
LoreleiThe Lorelei is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine near St. Goarshausen, Germany, which soars some 120 metres above the waterline. It marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea. A very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat...
Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He included a high F sharp in his
oratorioAn oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
ElijahElijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
("Hear Ye Israel") with Lind's voice in mind.
In July 1847, Lind starred in the world première of
VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's opera
I masnadieriI masnadieri is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller....
at Her Majesty's, under the baton of the composer. Four months later, she was devastated by the premature death of Mendelssohn in November 1847. She did not at first feel able to sing the soprano part in
Elijah, which he had written for her. She finally did so at a performance in London's
Exeter HallExeter Hall was a hall on the north side of The Strand, London, England. It was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site of Exeter Exchange, to designs by John Peter Gandy, the brother of the visionary architect Joseph Michael Gandy...
in late 1848, which raised £1,000 to fund a musical scholarship as a memorial to him; it was her first appearance in oratorio. The original intention had been to found a school of music in Mendelssohn's name in Leipzig, but there was not enough support for that in Leipzig, and with the help of
Sir George SmartSir George Thomas Smart was an English musician.Smart was born in London, his father being a music-seller. He was a choir-boy at the Chapel Royal, and was educated in music, becoming an expert violinist, organist, teacher of singing and conductor...
,
Julius BenedictSir Julius Benedict was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.-Life:...
and others, Lind eventually raised enough money to fund a scholarship "to receive pupils of all nations and promote their musical training". The first recipient of the Mendelssohn Scholarship was the 14-year-old
Arthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, whom Lind encouraged in his career.
In 1848, Lind and
Frédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
spent much time together while he was on a prolonged visit to London. As with her relationship with Mendelssohn, there has been some conjecture about a love affair. While there is no conclusive evidence of that, there is no doubt that Chopin admired her greatly, and that his admiration was reciprocated.
During her two years on the operatic stage in London, Lind appeared in most of the standard opera repertory. Early in 1849, still in her twenties, Lind announced her permanent retirement from opera. Her last opera performance was on 10 May 1849 in
Robert le diable; Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family were present. Lind's biographer Francis Rogers has written, "The reasons for her early retirement have been much discussed for nearly a century, but remain today a matter of mystery. Many possible explanations have been advanced, but not one of them has been verified."
American tour
In 1849, Lind was approached by the American showman P.T. Barnum with a proposal to tour throughout the United States for more than a year. Realising that this would yield large sums for her favoured charities, particularly the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden, Lind agreed. Her financial demands were stringent, but Barnum met them, and in 1850 they reached agreement.
Together with a supporting
baritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, Giovanni Belletti, and her London colleague Julius Benedict as pianist, arranger and conductor, Lind sailed to America in September 1850. Barnum's advance publicity made her a celebrity even before she arrived in the U.S., and she received a wild reception on arriving in New York. Tickets for some of her concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The enthusiasm of the public was so strong that the American press coined the term "Lind mania".
After New York, Lind's party toured the east coast of America, with continued success, and later took in Cuba, the southern states of the U.S., and Canada. By early 1851, Lind had become uncomfortable with Barnum's relentless marketing of the tour, and she invoked a contractual right to sever her ties with him; they parted amicably. She continued the tour for nearly a year, under her own management, until May 1852. Benedict left the party in 1851 to return to England, and Lind invited
Otto GoldschmidtOtto Moritz David Goldschmidt was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces...
to replace him as pianist and conductor. Towards the end of the tour, Lind and Goldschmidt were married on 5 February 1852 in Boston. She took the name "Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt" both privately and professionally.
Details of the later concerts under her own management are scarce, but it is known that under Barnum's management Lind gave 93 concerts in America; for these, she earned about $350,000, and he netted at least $500,000. She donated her profits to her chosen charities, including some U.S. charities.
Later years
Lind and Goldschmidt returned to Europe together in May 1852. They lived first in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Germany, and, from 1855, in England for the rest of their lives. They had three children: Otto, born September 1853 in Germany, Jenny, born March 1857 in England, and Ernest, born January 1861 in England.
Although she refused all requests to appear in opera after her return to Europe, Lind continued to perform in the concert hall. In 1866, she gave a concert with
Arthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
at
St James's HallSt. James's Hall was a concert hall in London that opened on 25 March 1858, designed by architect and artist Owen Jones, who had decorated the interior of the Crystal Palace. It was situated between the Quadrant in Regent Street and Piccadilly, and Vine Street and George Court. There was a...
.
The Times reported, "there is magic still in that voice ... the most perfect singing – perfect alike in expression and in vocalization. ... Nothing more engaging, nothing more earnest, nothing more dramatic can be imagined." At Düsseldorf in January 1870, she sang in "Ruth", an oratorio composed by her husband. When Goldschmidt formed the Bach Choir in 1875, Lind trained the soprano choristers for the first English performance of Bach's B minor Mass, in April 1876, and performed in the mass. Her concerts decreased in frequency until she retired from singing in 1883.
In 1879–1887 Lind worked with
Frederick NiecksFrederick Niecks was a German musical scholar and author, who was resident in Scotland for the bulk of his life. He is best remembered now for his biographies of Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann.-Biography:...
on his biography of Chopin. In 1882, she was appointed professor of singing at the newly-founded
Royal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
. She believed in an all-round musical training for her pupils, insisting that, in addition to their vocal studies, they were instructed in
solfègeIn music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
, piano, harmony, diction, deportment and at least one foreign language.
She lived her final years at Wynd's Point,
HerefordshireHerefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
, on the
Malvern HillsThe Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern...
near the
British CampThe British Camp is an Iron Age hill fort located at the top of Herefordshire Beacon in the Malvern Hills. The fort is thought to have been first constructed in the 2nd century BC...
. Her last public appearance was at a charity concert at Royal Malvern Spa in 1883. She died, aged 67, at Wynd's Point on 2 November 1887 and was buried in the
Great MalvernGreat Malvern is an area of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It is the historical centre of the town, and the location of the headquarters buildings of the of Malvern Town Council, the governing body of the Malvern civil parish, and Malvern Hills District council of the county of...
Cemetery to the music of Chopin's Funeral March. She bequeathed a considerable part of her wealth to help poor Protestant students in Sweden receive an education.
Reputation, legacy and memorials
There are no recordings of Lind's voice. She is believed to have made an early
phonographThe phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
recording for
Thomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, but in the words of the critic Philip L. Miller, "Even had the fabled Edison cylinder survived, it would have been too primitive, and she too long retired, to tell us much". The biographer Francis Rogers concludes that although Lind was much admired by Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, the Schumanns, Berlioz and others, "In voice and in dramatic talent she was undoubtedly inferior to her predecessors,
MalibranThe mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
and
PastaGiuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...
, and to her contemporaries,
SontagHenriette Sontag was a German operatic soprano of great international renown. She possessed a sweet-toned, lyrical voice and was a brilliant exponent of florid singing.-Life:...
and
GrisiGiulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
." He notes that because of her expert promoters, including Barnum, "almost all that was written about her was undoubtedly biased by an almost overwhelming propaganda in her favor, bought and paid for". Rogers says of Mendelssohn and Lind's other admirers, that their tastes were "essentially Teutonic" and, except for Meyerbeer, they were not expert in Italian opera, Lind's early specialty. He quotes a critic of the
New York HeraldThe New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
, who noted "little deficiencies in execution, in ascending the scale, which even enthusiasm cannot deprive of their sharpness". The American press agreed that Lind's presentation was more typical of Germanic "cold, untouching, icy purity of tone and style", rather than the passionate expression necessary for Italian opera, and the
Herald wrote that her style was "suited to please the people of our cold climate. She will have triumphs here that would never attend her progress through France or Italy".
The critic H. F. Chorley, who admired Lind, described her voice as having "two octaves in compass – from D to D – having a higher possible note or two, available on rare occasions; and that the lower half of the register and the upper one were of two distinct qualities. The former was not strong – veiled, if not husky; and apt to be out of tune. The latter was rich, brilliant and powerful – finest in its highest portions." Chorley praised her breath management, her use of
pianissimo, her taste in ornament and her intelligent use of technique to conceal the differences between her upper and lower registers. He thought her "execution was great" and that she was a "skilled and careful musician", but felt that "many of her effects on the stage appeared overcalculated" and that singing in foreign languages impeded her ability to give expression to the text. He felt, however, that her concert singing was more admirable, than her operatic performances, although he praised some of her roles. Chorley judged her finest work to be in the German repertoire, citing Mozart,
HaydnFranz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
and Mendelssohn's
Elijah as best suited to her. Miller concluded that although connoisseurs of the voice preferred other singers, her wider appeal to the public at large was not merely a legend created by Barnum, but was a mixture of "a uniquely pure (some called it celestial) quality in her voice, consistent with her well-known generosity and charity."
Under the name "Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt", she is commemorated in
Poets' CornerPoets' Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey because of the number of poets, playwrights, and writers buried and commemorated there. The most recent additions were a memorial floor stone unveiled in 2009 for the founders of the Royal Ballet...
,
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, London. Among those present at the memorial's unveiling ceremony on 20 April 1894 were Goldschmidt, members of the Royal Family, Sullivan,
Sir George GroveSir George Grove, CB was an English writer on music, known as the founding editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
and representatives of some of the charities supported by Lind. There is also a plaque commemorating Lind in The Boltons,
KensingtonKensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, London and a
Blue PlaqueA blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
at 189 Old Brompton Road, London, SW7, which was erected in 1909.
Lind has been commemorated in music, on screen, and even on banknotes. Both the 1996 and 2006 issues of the Swedish 50-
kronaThe krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
banknote bear a portrait of Lind on the front. Many artistic works have honoured or featured her. Anton Wallerstein composed the "Jenny Lind Polka" around 1850. In the 1930 Hollywood film
A Lady's MoralsA Lady's Morals is a 1930 film offering a highly fictionalized account of singer Jenny Lind. The movie features Grace Moore as Lind, Reginald Denny as a lover, and Wallace Beery as P. T. Barnum; Beery would play Barnum again four years later in The Mighty Barnum...
,
Grace MooreGrace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
starred as Lind, with
Wallace BeeryWallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as Barnum. In 1941
Ilse WernerIlse Werner was an actress and singer. She was born to a Dutch father and a German mother and was a Dutch citizen by birth...
starred as Lind in the German-language film
Schwedische Nachtigall, with
Joachim GottschalkJoachim Gottschalk was a European movie star during the 1930s, a romantic lead in the style of Leslie Howard...
as Hans Christian Andersen. In 2001, a
semi-biographical filmHans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale is a 2001 semi-biographical television miniseries that fictionalizes the young life of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was directed by Philip Saville and starred Kieran Bew as the title character...
about Andersen featured Flora Montgomery as Lind. In January 2005,
Elvis CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
announced that he was writing an opera about her, called
The Secret Arias with some lyrics by Andersen. A 2010
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television documentary "Chopin – The Women Behind the Music" includes discussion of Chopin's last years, during which Lind "so affected" the composer.
Many places and objects have been named for Lind, including
Jenny Lind Island-History:The island is uninhabited but still has an active North Warning System. Originally part of the Distant Early Warning Line, the site is known as CAM-1.-References:***...
in Canada, the
Jenny Lind locomotiveThe Jenny Lind locomotive was the first of a class of ten steam locomotives built in 1847 for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway by E. B. Wilson and Company of Leeds, named after Jenny Lind who was a famous opera singer of the period...
and a
clipper shipA clipper was a very fast sailing ship of the 19th century that had three or more masts and a square rig. They were generally narrow for their length, could carry limited bulk freight, small by later 19th century standards, and had a large total sail area...
, the
USS NightingaleUSS Nightingale was originally the tea clipper and slave ship Nightingale, launched in 1851. She was captured in Africa in 1861 by , taken as a prize and purchased by the United States Navy....
. An Australian schooner was named
Jenny Lind in her honour. In 1857 it was wrecked in a creek on the
QueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
coast; the creek was accordingly named Jenny Lind Creek.
In Britain, Goldschmidt's endowment of an infirmary for children in her memory in
NorwichNorwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
is perpetuated in its present form as the Jenny Lind Children's Hospital of the
Norfolk and Norwich University HospitalThe Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital is a National Health Service academic teaching hospital located on the off the A11 road and the Watton Road on the southern outskirts of Norwich, England....
. There is a Jenny Lind Park in the same city. A chapel is named for Lind at the
University of WorcesterThe University of Worcester is a British university, based in Worcester, Worcestershire, England. It was granted university status in September 2005.-History:...
City Campus. A hotel and pub is named after her in the Old Town of
HastingsHastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
,
East SussexEast Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
. Hereford County Hospital has a psychiatric ward named for Jenny Lind.
In the U.S., Lind is commemorated by street names in
Fort Smith, ArkansasFort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
;
McKeesport, PennsylvaniaMcKeesport is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in the United States; it is located at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 19,731 at the 2010 census...
; North Easton, Massachusetts; and
Stanhope, New Jersey-Transportation:Route 183 is the main access road that serves the borough. U.S. Route 206 also passes through in the western section and is partially a limited access road which connects to I-80 in neighboring Mount Olive.-Demographics:...
; and in the name of the gold-rush town of
Jenny Lind, CaliforniaJenny Lind is an unincorporated community in Calaveras County, California. It lies at an elevation of 253 feet and is located at . The community is in ZIP code 95252 and area code 209....
. She has been honoured since 1948 by the Barnum Festival, which takes place each June and July in
Bridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
. Through a national competition, the festival selects a soprano as the Jenny Lind winner. Her Swedish counterpart, chosen by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the People's Parks and Community Centre in Stockholm, visits during the festival, and the two perform several concerts together. In July, the American Jenny Lind winner traditionally travels to Sweden for a similar joint concert tour.
See also
- American Swedish Historical Museum
The American Swedish Historical Museum is the oldest Swedish-American museum in the United States. It is located in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in the South Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on part of a historic 17th-century land grant originally provided by Queen...
- Justina Casagli
Justina Kristina Casagli, née Wässelius, , was a Swedish opera singer. She was internationally famous and active in Italy and Germany...
- Elisabeth Frösslind
Kristina Elisabet Frösslind, also called Elise Frösslind, Kristina Elisabet Frösslind, also called Elise Frösslind, Kristina Elisabet Frösslind, also called Elise Frösslind, (27 February 1793 - 24 October 1861, was a Swedish opera singer and actor at the Royal Swedish Opera and the Royal Dramatic...
- Elisabeth Olin
Elisabeth Olin was a Swedish opera singer and a music composer. She is referred to as the first Swedish Opera prima donna. She was a court-singer . She was the first female member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music...
- Lina Sandell
Lina Sandell was a Swedish writer of Gospel hymns.Born Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell in a rectory at Fröderyd, Småland, Sweden...
- Jenny Lind locomotive
The Jenny Lind locomotive was the first of a class of ten steam locomotives built in 1847 for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway by E. B. Wilson and Company of Leeds, named after Jenny Lind who was a famous opera singer of the period...
- Jenny Lind soup
Jenny Lind soup is a thick mixture, of the consistency of wallpaper paste, named for popular 19th-century singer Jenny Lind. Leopold Bloom, a character in James Joyce's Ulysses, fantasizes about it while lunching in the Ormond: "Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half-pint of cream...
- Jenny Lind Tower
The Jenny Lind Tower is a stone tower located in North Truro, Massachusetts. It is named after Jenny Lind, who is rumored to have climbed the tower when it was located in Boston to prevent a riot among people who were unable to attend her concert. It is located roughly between Highland Light and...
- List of Swedes in music
Further reading
External links