Maria Jeritza
Encyclopedia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n soprano
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...
singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
(1912–1935) and the 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...
(1921-1932 and 1951). Her sensational rise to fame and spectacular beauty and personality earned her the nickname The Moravian Thunderbolt.
In 1910, she made her debut as Elsa, in Wagner's
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, at Olomouc
Olomouc
Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...
. The Emperor Franz Josef
Franz Josef
Franz Josef or Franz Joseph is a given name.People known solely by the name:* Franz Joseph I of Austria , Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary and King of Bohemia...
heard her and immediately commanded that she be offered a contract at the Imperial Hofoper, Vienna. She created the roles of Blanchefleur in Kienzl
Wilhelm Kienzl
Wilhelm Kienzl was an Austrian composer.-Biography:Kienzl was born in the small, picturesque Upper Austrian town of Waizenkirchen. His family moved to the Styrian capital of Graz in 1860, where he studied the violin under Ignaz Uhl, piano under Johann Buwa, and composition from 1872 under the...
's 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...
Der Kuhreigen
Der Kuhreigen
Der Kuhreigen is an opera in three acts by the Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl. The libretto, by Richard Batka, is after Rudolf Hans Bartsch's novel Die kleine Blanchefleur...
(1911), Ariadne in Strauss's
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
(1912), the Empress in his Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
(1919), and Marie/Marietta in Korngold's
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott , and is based on Bruges-la-Morte, a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.-Performance history:When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23...
(1920), the latter also being the role of her debut with the 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...
on November 19, 1921.
On November 16, 1926, she starred in the title role of Puccini's
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...
Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
in its North American premiere at the Metropolitan, where she also created the title or leading soprano roles in Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
(1924), Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...
's I gioielli della Madonna
I gioielli della Madonna
I gioielli della Madonna is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event....
(1925), Korngold's Violanta
Violanta
Violanta is a one-act opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the Austrian playwright Hans Müller-Einigen. It is Korngold's second opera, written when he was only seventeen years old.-Performance history:...
(1927), Richard Strauss' Die Ägyptische Helena
Die ägyptische Helena
Die ägyptische Helena is an opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on June 6, 1928...
(1928), and Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé or Francesco Suppé Demelli was an Austrian composer of light operas who was born in what is now Croatia during the time his father was working in this outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
's Boccaccio (1931) and Donna Juanita (1932.) Her popularity at the Metropolitan was, as in Vienna, immense, especially as 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...
, 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...
and 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 Thaïs
Thaïs (opera)
Thaïs is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role...
.
After a short, only two-year marriage to Mr. Wiener
Wiener
Wiener is German for Viennese, but may also refer to:* A German sausage named after Vienna * A sausage used in hot dogsWiener is the surname of:* Alexander S...
, Jeritza's second husband was an Austrian Baron, Friedrich Leopold Salvator Freiherr Popper von Podhragy (1886-1953). Her next husband, the third one, was (1935) a Hollywood mogul Winfield R. Sheehan
Winfield R. Sheehan
Winfield R. Sheehan , was an American film producer and executive. At the Fox Film Corporation in Hollywood he was chief of production from 1926 to 1935, when Darryl F...
, who died in 1945. In 1948 she married New Jersey businessman Irving Seery and moved to a mansion located in the Forest Hill
Forest Hill, Newark, New Jersey
Forest Hill is an affluent pre-World War II neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey's North Ward. It is bounded on the west by Branch Brook Park, on the south by Bloomfield Avenue , and on the east by both Summer and Mt. Prospect Avenues, the neighborhood of Broadway...
neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
where she made her home until her death in 1982, at age 94. She died in Orange, New Jersey and is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, New Jersey
North Arlington, New Jersey
North Arlington is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 15,392...
.
Jeritza made a number of 78-rpm recordings which testify to the high quality of her voice. Many of these recordings have been released on CD.
External links
- Maria Jeritza on Find-A-Grave
- Maria Jeritza in the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- [ Erik Eriksson's Brief Biography of Maria Jeritza]