Gadski, Johanna

Description

Autograph ID: 5011
Condition: Very good
Description: “(1872-1932) German soprano, noted for heavy dramatic roles in the German and Italian repertoires performed in New York and London. After receiving a musical education in Stettin, she made her opera debut in Berlin in 1889 in the role of Undine. Highlights of her subsequent career in Germany included appearances in Wagner’s works at the 1899 Bayreuth Festival and at the 1905-06 Munich Festival. However, it was in English-speaking countries that Gadski built her international reputation as a diva. She made her successful American debut in New York in 1895 with the Damrosch Company and became popular, too, in England. In 1896 she created the role of Hester Prynne in the premiere of Walter Damrosch’s opera “The Scarlet Letter” in Boston. She sang in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1899-1901 and 1906. She was an extremely popular recitalist and, in 1899-1900, embarked on a US concert tour. She was the leading Wagnerian soprano at the New York Metropolitan Opera 1898-1904 and again 1907-17. At the height of WW I, she was obliged to resign from the Met because of her German links. She spent the duration of the war living quietly in New York and New Hampshire, and did not revisit Germany until 1922. She resumed her US professional concert career in 1921. She did not return to the operatic stage until the late 1920s; her first such appearance in a 1928 production of “Die Walküre” for the Washington National Opera (not related the present company). From 1929-31, she toured as the star of the German Grand Opera Company. An American citizen since 1925, she was visiting Germany when she died in a car accident in Berlin in 1932.

SP, 5 x 3 -½ near full-length halftone postcard SP (not in costume) signed with sentiment, March 1913.”
Type: Photograph