Willa
Cather's Prototypes Who Were Recording Artists.
FARRAR.
FREMSTAD. NORDICA. GARDEN. SCHUMANN-HEINK. BORI.
By Doug Boilesen, 2020
Willa Cather loved
opera and was a devoted patron of opera wherever she lived or
travelled. She had friendships with opera stars, understood the
world of opera, knew the challenges of being an artist in a consumer
world and of being a woman artist in male dominated domains, and
wrote multiple stories where a prima donna or an aspirational
artist was the central character.
Six of the opera singing
performers identified by scholars as likely prototypes (1)
for Cather opera related characters made phonograph records and
appeared in phonograph ads.
By appearing in popular
culture magazine ads these prototypes added their celebrity status,
artistic reputations, and the prestige of opera to promote key
phonograph industry themes; namely, that the world of entertainment,
highlighted by opera, was available to anyone, anytime and anyplace.
The stage of the world, it was advertised, could now be in your
own home where you would be more comfortable than in a theatre;
it was more convenient than going to a theatre, no expensive tickets
to buy, unlimited reperotoires, and always the best seat in the
house.
The
promotion of opera by the phonograph industry also had an on-going
subtext that recorded sound should be considered an equivalent
of live music and not a sound-reproducing novelty. "The Victor
Record of Farrar's
voice is just as truly Farrar as Farrar herself."
This page is an
overview of the six Cather prototype artists who have phonograph
connections.
Each artist also
has their own gallery (select from below) with many more examples
of the presence of each in popular culture, as prima donnas and
promoters of the phonograph and recorded sound.
Geraldine
Farrar (one of the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire in
Scandal and A Gold Slipper and interviewed by
Cather for her article Three American Singers).
Lillian
Nordica (prototype for Cressida Garnet in The Diamond
Mine)
Mary
Garden (prototype for Eden Bower in Coming, Aphrodite!
and one of the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire in Scandal)
Olive
Fremstad (prototype for Thea Kronborg in The Song
of the Lark and interviewed by Cather for her article Three
American Singers).
Ernestine
Schumann-Heink (prototype
for "soprano soloist" in Paul’s Case).
Lucrezia
Bori (prototype for "Spanish woman" in Scandal).
Cather's first collection
of short stories (The Troll Garden, 1905) were written
in the early years of the phonograph entering the home.
In the following decade,
when Cather was writing many of her opera and aspirational artist
stories e.g., The Song of the Lark (1915) and the publication
of her collection of short stories Youth and Bright Medusa
(1920), the phonograph became the definitive home entertainer.
Electrical recordings were introduced in 1925 and the prevalence
of radio in the 1930's would further alter how the public experienced
sound.
The evolution of the
phonograph from 1900 to 1920 included advertisements made by six
of Cather's opera prototypes which reveal aspects of the new century's
consumerism and themes of "live" versus recorded music,
the "Stage
of the World' entering homes and the advertising power of
prima donnas.
E.T. Paull - Sheet
music published by E.T. Paull Music Co., New York, 1900. - Sheet
Music from University of Indiana
In promoting opera
The Victor Talking Machine Company led the way with its advertising
campaigns featuring opera, Caruso and "the greatest artists
of the world." Farrar, Schumann-Heink and Bori would all
record for Victor. Schumann-Heink also did five records for Columbia.
Columbia was a strong
competitor and promoted the exclusivity of their 'greatest artists
of the world" whenever they could. Nordica, Garden and Fremstad
would be featured Columbia artists. (3)
Edison didn't have
as many of the first-tier opera stars and seems to have been more
interested in advertising the technical accuracy of his phonograph
than promoting world-renowned artists. Even the repertory of those
Edison celebrity artists have been described as "confined
to hackneyed operatic arias and quasi-popular encore pieces."
(3A) Perhaps most revealing,
the Edison business approach regarding these recordings was said
to have been "the flat statement that the reproduction of
operatic and symphonic music did not represent a sound commercial
proposition -- in America." (3B)
Nevertheless, Edison's
phonographs and ads were prevalent in popular culture for over
three decades and some of those ads were for his 'grand opera'
records and the 'famous artists'
that he did recruit.
With respect to the
Cather prototypes, Mary Garden recorded three records for Edison
in 1905 and Lucrezia Bori made thirty recordings for Edison between
1910 and 1913. (3)
GERALDINE
FARRAR
