Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink

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Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink World Famous Contralto

Ernestine Schumann-Heink


Management Redpath Musical Bureau
CABLE BUILDING, CHICAGO



MADAME Ernestine Schumann-Heink, the world's greatest contralto, returned in September from her summer tour of 1914 in Europe to begin an important season of engagements under Redpath management.  Mme. Heink is so well known thruout the musical world that a lengthy descriptive article of her career would be superfluous here.

It will be recalled that at the age of 17 years she was the principal contralto in the Dresden Court Opera and first gained national reputation at Bayreuth.  As a member of the Metropolitan Opera Co., New York, for several seasons and the Chicago Grand Opera Company her achievements are well known.

Her personality is as great and pleasing as her voice and she touches the hearts of her audience as few other singers have ever done.  She also delights to sing in English—which is especially gratifying to the great American audiences who hear her.

Her marvelous range of voice enables her to vary her programs without effort.  It is said that she sings over three hundred of Schubert's seven hundred songs and all the Schumann songs found on programs today, to say nothing of her
 renditions of Franz, Straus, Grieg, Reger and others.  Someone has truly said that every phrase she sings is in itself a lesson in how that particular phrase should be sung.

Great as she has been for many years, Schumann-Heink is constantly growing more and more in favor, as is indicated in the following concerning her appearance this year at the Cincinnati Festival.  The Musical Leader of May 21 says:

Mme. Schumann-Heink was the most sought after celebrity socially of the week.  Every one delighted to do her honor, and she was overwhelmed with courtesies.  Invitations to dinners, suppers and luncheons crowded one upon the other and Cincinnatians lavished every possible attention upon the great woman and artist who for thirty years has delighted the music public of the world.

Never has she sung with more opulent tone, more surety and musicianship than during the Cincinnati festival, and every performance has added to her great prestige.

This was Schumann-Heink's sixth appearance at the festival, and she was given such a welcome that, accustomed as she is to demonstration, it almost overwhelmed her.  At the Saturday concert she experienced one of the greatest triumphs of her life.  Chorus and audience united to show how deep was their admiration and joy in her, both as singer and woman.  The excitement and enthusiasm were absolutely unprecedented.

The King is dead—Long live the King!  does not hold with Schumann-Heink.  At the concert Wednesday night, ex-President Taft was present, and when she saw him in a stage box, Mme. Schumann-Heink, in the way customary abroad, curtsied low three times, and the immense audience recognized with a storm of applause.  It was a beautiful tribute to the man who, at the last festival, when chief executive of the United States, had singled her out for especial distinction, she being, in fact, one of the dozen guests at the supper given in honor of President Taft by his brother.


So great is the hold that Schumann-Heink has over the Cincinnati public that, although this made her thirty-second appearance in Cincinnati, she is engaged to give a recital under the Thuman management, either the first Sunday before Thanksgiving or the one immediately succeeding.



HER AUDIENCE FEELS LIKE ONE BIG FAMILY.

Her smile never was happier and it seemed to infuse the audience with the same spirit, for it listened to her and applauded her smiling, and once when something out of the ordinary occurred and she laughed, the whole house caught the infection and laughed with her.  The 'Spring Song' from 'Samson and Delilah' was her first offering, and then as an encore she sang Brahms' 'Sapphic Ode.'  Then she sang songs in English.  Five of them composed her part of the second half of the program, and her diction was excellent.  Again she had to give encores, two of them this time, one a German folk song and the other 'Mavourneen.'  Delightful as is her voice, it was not wholly due to it that Madame Schumann-Heink received the ovation given her.  She has the rare faculty of making the audience feel like one big family to which she administers in her wholehearted way.—
New York Herald.



WELCOMED WITH ENTHUSIASM.

Schumann-Heink, whose name and fame have not been harmed by the coming to this country of other contraltos—among them three fine singers—again proved a tower of strength as the chief star at last night's Metropolitan concert.  The house was packed and jammed from floor to roof.  Two hundred seats had been added to the regular arm chairs in the orchestra.  And many persons could not get admission.  With great good sense, Madame Schumann-Heink gave special prominence to songs in English; the audience welcomed her with enthusiasm.—
New York American.