An All-But-Forgotten But Great
American Opera Singer
BY WARREN BOROSON
Born in Farmington, Maine, she may have been the first American
opera singer to become famous all over the world. She was the first American opera singer to sing at Wagner’s opera house,
in Bayreuth. And some consider her the most glamorous opera singer of all time
— surpassing even Geraldine Ferrer. As for her voice, a music professor described it as “indescribably
magnificent.” A music critic said her voice was “as beautiful, as smooth, as
mellow, velvety and luscious as the voice of any prima donna I have ever
heard.”
She sang everywhere,
including, of course, the Metropolitan Opera. Early in her career, audiences in
Europe went crazy about her singing. After one concert, members of the
orchestra, along with a crowd, followed her to her hotel and serenaded her
until 1 a.m. Other admirers sent her rare jewels. One particular admirer,
without having even met her at the time, sent her a check for $10,000!
A cloak was named
after her. So was a new color. And then there was Chicken Nordica. (See below
for the recipe.)
Yet Lillian Norton
(La Nordica) is almost totally forgotten today. My excuse for writing about her
now is that she died 100 years ago this year — on May 10, 1914 — at the relatively
young age of 56, and her last legal address was in Deal, N.J., and her ashes
rest in Jersey City.
Things you may not know about the admirable Lillian
Nordica:
• She was an ardent
feminist. She even condoned the Suffragettes’ resorting to violence, and
vigorously defended Madame Pankhurst, even though Pankhurst did such dreadful
things as breaking windows. Nordica went so far as to say — good God! — that
she would vote for a woman for President.
• She sang with
such famous contemporaries as Caruso, Melba, and Schumann-Heink. Said
Schumann-Heink, “She sang like nobody I ever heard sing — nobody.”
• When operatic
superstars like the arrogant Jean de Reszke tried to bully her, she stood up to
them. (De Reszke: “If I want it, I want it.”)
• Among the
conductors she sang for: the young Toscanini, the young Stokowski.
• Gounod, Ambrose Thomas, and Sir Arthur
Sullivan worked with her. Verdi went out of his way to meet her.
• Unlike some other
sopranos — of whom it’s been said, the higher the voice, the lower the
intelligence — she was well read, as well as a fine writer.
• She suffered one
of the nastiest insults an opera singer has ever endured. When she was already famous,
she invited an even more famous opera singer, Lili Lehmann, to a getogether.
Insultingly, Lehmann responded: She was not accepting any more students at this
time. So, what did our heroine La Nordica do? She killed Lehmann with kindness.
Two years later, on
Jan. 2, 1899, Lehmann discovered that she had not brought any black stockings
with her for a performance of “Don Giovanni.” Nordica, also singing in that
opera, had an extra pair, and sent them to Lehmann’s dressing room. The next
day, the stockings were returned (washed), with a note from Lehmann to “My
dearest Mrs. Nordica,” thanking her profusely… and adding that Nordica’s voice
was much better than it had been two years ago.
• News that an
American had been chosen to sing Elsa in “Lohengrin” at Bayreuth was received
with outrage. Why not a German soprano? Nordica was a favorite of Cosima
Wagner, Wagner’s widow, until she dared to sing at a rival opera house —and
Cosima would have nothing more to do with her. (A music critic has written that
Cosima Wagner may have been the most obnoxious human being ever — but then
corrected himself, explaining that he had forgotten about Wagner himself.)
• She was one
helluva hard worker. She sang in operas for mezzos, contraltos, and sopranos.
Whenever another singer became ill and could not sing, old reliable Nordica would
substitute. “Plenty have voices equal to mine, plenty have talents equal to
mine,” she said. “But I have worked.” What did she want said about her at her
funeral? “She did her damdedest.”
• She did such admirable
things as singing free of charge for charities, bowing to the people in the
poorer seats, singing to raise money for the victims of the Titanic disaster.
• If she had an
Achilles’ heel, it was the heels she married. (Like many other opera singers, she
spent so much time singing, she was late in maturing.) Said our fair lady: “I’m
just a poor picker of husbands.”
1. Frederick
Gower. It was he who sent her a check for $10,000. A colleague of Alexander
Graham Bell’s, he has been described by Nordica’s biographer as “uncongenial,
uncultured, and an intellectual boor.” He wanted her to give up singing; he
ever burned her scores and her costumes.
Later, overwhelmed with debt, he was riding in a balloon when he
disappeared mysteriously at sea. For years Nordica was fearful that he would
turn up again.
2. Zoltan Dome,
a second-rate singer. According to Nordica’s biographer, Dome gave up “all
pretense of being a singer now that he was so comfortably married to a
successful one … [and] was the sort who cuts old friends, and probably the kind
who is rude to waiters.” She divorced him after he had threatened to shoot her.
3. A New Jersey
banker and corporation director named George Washington Young. It was he who
built a luxurious abode in Deal. After he lost much of his money (and a lot of hers)
and after Nordica had died, he tried to break her will. Unsuccessfully. He had
also replaced precious stones in a valuable tiara of hers with paste.
• Was she ever
outspoken! She was vexed that no American singers had performed in the American
premiere of Puccini’s “Girl of the Golden West” at the Met, and she thought
that the opera itself distorted the truth. “I have been in the West myself and
know what the life of the miners there is. That is the reason I know how good
the Americans would have been in the opera and how untrue to the spirit of this
country the music is.” As for Prohibition, she said she would resent any law
that forbade her “a glass of wine and a piece of pie.”
• The quality of
Nordica’s recordings is, sad to say, woeful. As she grew older, like many other
singers, her voice suffered. Also, the few recordings that had been made
deteriorated — including the famous recordings made by Lionel Mapleson, the Met
librarian, and nephew of the impresario Colonel Mapleson. Lionel used over 100
cyclinders to record actual performances, but the cylinders eventually became
moldy and dirty. Besides, the recordings were only two minutes long. The
cylinders are now at the New York Public
Library. I bought copies of some of the recordings recently. Disappointing.
While Nordica was
not always lucky, she was blessed with having a wonderful biographer: Ira Glackens,
author of “Yankee Diva” (1963) and son of a famous American painter. He describes
being a passenger on a ship sailing across the Atlantic in the late 19th century;
he reports what women wore to the opera back then. Here are samples of his
writing:
“An ever-present
mother-in-law [Nordica’s mother] who secretly hates her son-in- law is not a
situation conducive to serene domestic life….”
“Facts have a
stubborn way of not arranging themselves as artistically as might be wished.”
(Anent the false assertion that Nordica’s final aria was Brunnhilda’s
Immolation scene. Actually, it was an aria by Verdi.)
Another fine book,
which has a worthwhile essay on Nordica, is Peter G. Davis’ “The American Opera
Singer” (1997).
+++
She was born Lillian
Norton but, when she became famous, was known as La Nordica.
Her older sister,
Wilhemina, had a promising voice, and it was she who got the singing lessons.
When Lillian sang along, her sisters actually paid her to keep her mouth shut.
But after Wilhemina died, at age 18, the family recognized that Lillian had an
almost identical voice. Now she was given the singing lessons.
A music teacher in
Italy advised her to change her name, to a more Italian-sounding name — Giglio
Nordica.
She died of
pneumonia in Jakarta, Java, after touring in Australia and being exposed in a
hurricane. On her deathbed, she disinherited her husband. Her body was cremated,
and her ashes placed in Young’s family plot in the New York Bay Cemetery in
Jersey City.
+++
When she was
among the world’s most famous opera singers, Nordica (1857-1914) visited
relatives of hers in Martha’s Vineyard — as related by Ira Glackens.
Her young cousin,
Franklin, 18, had a job delivering milk.
That morning, he
was delivering milk to a house where the owner took in guests. The window was
open, and Franklin stopped to listen to a recording of La Nordica singing
“Mighty Lak’ a Rose.”
Oh look, said the
landlady contemptuously. The milkman is listening to Nordica!
Franklin,
embarrassed, went home and told Nordica what had happened.
The next day, at 5 a.m., Nordica climbed into the
milkman’s truck and sat beside him while he delivered milk.
They were a little
delayed.
When they arrived at
the house of the rude landlady, the woman called out, Why are you late? Were
you listening to Nordica?
She had fallen into the trap…
The book’s author
writes merely that “one can guess the denouement.”
I suggest that the
denouement might have been: I was, the
young man responded. Would you like to
meet my famous cousin, La Nordica?
The “Death-Defying” Chicken Nordica
(as modernized by John Prince)
1 capon, about 4 lbs, with giblets
prosciutto (or ham) sliced thin
¼ lb. veal, ground
¼ lb. chicken livers
1 cup milk
2 eggs, well beaten
5 slices bread
2 tbsp. flour
5 onions
2 stalks celery; celery tops
butter
parsley
¼ cup Armagnac or cognac
salt, pepper, thyme, Tabasco
Rub the capon with butter, salt, and pepper, stuff it with a
cut-up onion and a stalk of celery. Place it in an uncovered baking pan in oven
pre-heated to 400 degrees. Brown for about 45 minutes, turning so as to catch
all the sides and ending with breast up.
Meanwhile, make a
broth of the giblets, an onion, and a stalk of celery coarsely cut, in enough
water to end with three cups. Set this aside for basting and gravy.
When the bird is
browned, cover the breast with thin slices of prosciutto (ham if necessary) and
baste. Lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for about 1½ hours. (A meat
thermometer is useful here.)
Next, prepare the
dressing, which is cooled separately but put into the oven for the last hour.
In a large skillet, lightly brown in butter three onions, a handful of celery
tops, and a handful of parsley, all finely chopped. Add the ground veal and the chicken livens,
stirring for two minutes over a low flame. Add the slices of crumpled bread and
more butter if necessary. Stir slowly for a few minutes. Remove from fire, add
the milk, eggs, salt, pepper, and a pinch of thyme. Mix well and place in a
flat baking dish that can come to the table. Put into oven about an hour before
capon is done.
When capon is
nearly finished (about 15 minutes), sprinkle the flour about in is juices. When bird is just done, pour the Armagnac or
cognac over it and let cook five minutes longer.
Transfer capon to a
platter and keep warm while you make the gravy. Put the baking dish on top of
the stove. Stir the juices with a wire whisk.
Add the remaining broth and cook, stirring constantly, until the gravy
thickens. Salt and pepper to taste, and add a tint dash of Tabasco.
La Nordica in Song
Peter Davis: “…a truly
staggering display of vocal self-assurance.”
From Die Walkure (1903)
Davis: Nordica “fearlessly and exuberantly attacks a series
of runs and staccatos, eventually ascending to a high B before tossing off a
stunning climcactic trill.” (1907)
Aria from Erkel’s “Hunyadi Laszlo”
To receive Boroson’s music articles, drop him a note at WarrenBoroson@aol.com.
