Why did Jenny Lind come to New York?
Jenny Lind was a European opera star who came to America in 1850 for a tour promoted by the great showman Phineas T. Barnum. When her ship arrived in New York Harbor, the city went crazy. A massive crowd of more than 30,000 New Yorkers greeted her.
When did Jenny Lind go on tour?
The Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale", was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. At the height of her fame she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued to May 1852.
Where did Lindsey Lind perform in NYC?
Lind was greeted like a queen and rock star when she arrived at the Canal Street dock despite most New Yorkers having never heard her sing. Her stage was Castle Garden, the former fort turned performance venue that sat in New York harbor, connected to the Battery by a small bridge. The concert proved legendary.
Is Jenny Lind the greatest singer ever?
The New York Tribune summarised her popularity: “Jenny Lind’s first concert is over; and all doubts are at an end. She is the greatest singer we have ever heard”. Read more: ‘Never Enough’ from The Greatest Showman: who sings it and who wrote it? >
What did Jenny Lind do in New York?
During her first week in New York, Jenny Lind made excursions to various concert halls with Barnum, to see which might be good enough to hold her concerts. Crowds followed their progress about the city, and anticipation for her concerts kept growing.
Who was Jenny Lind?
Jenny Lind was a European opera star who came to America in 1850 for a tour promoted by the great showman Phineas T. Barnum. When her ship arrived in New York Harbor, the city went crazy. A massive crowd of more than 30,000 New Yorkers greeted her.
What did Jenny Lind demand from Barnum?
Jenny Lind drove a hard bargain with Barnum, demanding that he deposit the equivalent of nearly $200,000 in a London bank as an advance payment before she would sail to America. Barnum had to borrow the money, but he arranged for her to come to New York and embark on a concert tour of the United States.
How much did Jenny Lind's first concert ticket cost?
The auction was held, and the first ticket to a Jenny Lind concert in America was sold for $225, an expensive concert ticket by today’s standards and a simply staggering amount in 1850. Most of the tickets to her first concert sold for about six dollars, but the publicity surrounding someone paying more than $200 for a ticket served its purpose.
What is Jenny Lind's nickname?
Lind had acquired a new nickname, “The Swedish Nightingale, ” and Barnum made sure that Americans heard about her. Rather than promote her as a serious musical talent, Barnum made it sound like Jenny Lind was some mystical being blessed with a heavenly voice.
How long did Jenny Lind's tour last?
The American tour lasted for about 18 months, with Jenny Lind appearing in more than 90 concerts in American cities. Wherever she went, her public image of a virtuous songbird who dressed modestly and donated money to local charities gained favorable mentions in the newspapers.
Where was Jenny Lind born?
Early Life of Jenny Lind. Jenny Lind was born on October 6, 1820 to an impoverished and unmarried mother in Stockholm, Sweden. Her parents were both musicians, and young Jenny began singing at a very early age. As a child, she began formal music lessons, and by the age of 21, she was singing in Paris.
Who was Jenny Lind?
The Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale", was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. At the height of her fame she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued to May 1852. Barnum's advance publicity made Lind a celebrity even before she arrived in the U.S., and tickets for her first concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The tour provoked a popular furore dubbed "Lind Mania" by the local press, and raised large sums of money for both Lind and Barnum. Lind donated her profits to her favoured charities, principally the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden.
Why was Jenny Lind so popular?
Lind's appeal in America was, as Barnum had calculated, due as much to her simple and virtuous personality and her generosity to good causes as to her singing. Barnum is quoted as saying " [I]t is a mistake to say the fame of Jenny Lind rests solely on her ability to sing. She was a woman who would have been adored if she had had the voice of a crow."
How did Barnum get money for the Lind concert?
Lind's contract called for the total fee to be deposited in advance with the London banking house of Baring Brothers. Barnum had not anticipated front-end payments for Lind, since he always had paid performers as performances were completed. To raise the money, Barnum sought loans from New York bankers, who refused to make the loans based on a percentage of the Lind tour, so Barnum mortgaged all his commercial and residential properties. Still slightly short, Barnum finally persuaded a Philadelphia minister, who thought that Lind would be a good influence on American morals, to lend him the final $5,000. Barnum sent the $187,500 to London. Lind signed the contract to give 150 concerts in a year or eighteen months, with the option of withdrawing from the tour after sixty or one hundred contracts, paying Barnum $25,000 if she did so.
How much did Lind give to Barnum?
Lind gave 93 concerts in the United States for Barnum, earning her about $350,000; Barnum netted at least $500,000. From the outset, Lind had determined to give all her fees to charity. Her principal beneficiaries were free schools in her native Sweden, but she also distributed her U.S. concert earnings to local charities, including $1,000 to help build a church in Chicago, and $1,500 for the "mother church" of the Lutheran Augustana Synod in Andover, Illinois.
What did Lind want to do?
Lind wanted to endow free schools in Sweden, and Barnum's offer would allow her to earn a great deal of money . After checking Barnum's credit with a London bank, on 9 January 1850, Lind accepted his offer of $1,000 a night (plus expenses) for up to 150 concerts in the United States. She insisted on the services of Julius Benedict, ...
What was the name of the baritone that sang at Lind Mania?
Lind's concerts featured a supporting baritone, Giovanni Belletti, ...
What was Lind's farewell concert?
Each day a crowd gathered round her hotel, the Britannia Adelphi, and followed the carriage wherever it went." The first concert was a performance of Messiah conducted by Benedict, the second a mixed recital with serious and light items. She was, according to an eye-witness, "literally 'bombarded' with bouquets. She could scarcely make her way out of the orchestra, there was such a heap of flowers in all possible shapes." On the day of her embarkation she was cheered off by thousands of well-wishers on both banks of the River Mersey, and salutes were fired from the shore. A critic engaged by Barnum to cover the concert wrote of the enthusiasm of the Liverpool public and its grief at Lind's imminent departure. This review was widely circulated in English, European and American newspapers a week before Lind arrived in New York. During the voyage she and Benedict gave two concerts for the passengers and crew of the Atlantic. In her travelling party, with Benedict and Belletti, were her companion, Miss Alimanzioni, and her secretary, Max Hjortsberg.
Who was Jenny Lind?
That star was Jenny Lind—”The Swedish Nightingale”—a singer of uncommon talent and great renown whose arrival in New York City on this day in 1850 was greeted with a mania not unlike that which would greet another foreign musical invasion more than a century later.
How old was Jenny Lind in 1849?
Depending on which of two conflicting birthdates one accepts as accurate, Jenny Lind was either 29 or 39 years old in 1849, when she first came to the attention of P.T. Barnum.
Who was the circus huckster?
The iconic American huckster, showman and circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum is most often associated not with refined high culture but of somewhat coarser forms of entertainment—the circus, yes, but also Siamese twins and various human oddities such as “Zip the Pinhead” and the “Man-monkey.” It was none other than P.T. Barnum, however, who brought the greatest opera performer in the world from Europe to the United States in the mid-19th century for a triumphant national tour that set astonishing box-office records and fanned the flames of a widespread opera craze in 1850s America. That star was Jenny Lind—”The Swedish Nightingale”—a singer of uncommon talent and great renown whose arrival in New York City on this day in 1850 was greeted with a mania not unlike that which would greet another foreign musical invasion more than a century later.
When did Jenny Lind die?
Lind died 2 November 1887. The Library of Congress. The Jenny Lind Archive, George Mason University.
Who was Jenny Lind married to?
Jenny Lind married her accompanist, Otto Goldschmidt, in February 1852 while in the United States. She concluded her American tour at the end of May and returned to Europe. Having achieved unprecedented success and recognition on two continents, she semi-retired from performance.
What did Lind tell Barnum about her tour?
She would tour the United States, Lind told Barnum, only on guaranteed, pricey contractual conditions. She would need full orchestral accompaniment, with a noted conductor and accompanying baritone. She needed a sizeable complement of assistants. She wanted private carriages to transport her around the cities on her tour.
How many people crowded the dock to greet Lind?
At the time, Lind was virtually unknown in the United State. So effectively did Barnum publicize Lind’s arrival in advance, though, that a throng of 40,000 crowded the dock to greet her ship in New York Harbor. People were jostled into the water; several dozen were trampled.
How much did Lind make on her tour?
Lind’s American tour generated more than $700,000, of which Lind personally earned a quarter of a million. She delivered more than 100 performances during her 20 months in the United States.
What is Jenny Lind's nickname?
Jenny Lind’s nickname “Swedish Nightingale” was taken from one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, “The Nightingale. ”. Andersen during the early 1840s met and fell in love with her, but she declined to marry him. (Among her other unsuccessful suitors was composer Felix Mendelssohn.)
When did Jenny Lind leave Liverpool?
Jenny Lind’s American Tour. June 27, 2017. 0. 2676. The Atlantic leaving Liverpool for America, August 1850 . Dubbed “The Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind was one of the most famous sopranos in history. She also was an exceptionally shrewd businesswoman.
When did Jenny Lind start performing opera?
In 1837 Lind was engaged on an annual contract by the Royal Opera. The real launch of her career came with a role in Weber ’s Der Freischütz on 7 March 1838. As she later put it, ‘I got up that morning one creature and went to bed another, for I had found my vocation.’ She quickly became, as one magazine later put it, ‘the declared favourite of the Swedish public.’ The company soon showcased her in other leading roles – Julie in Spontini’s La vestale, Alice in Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable – but she knew that artistically she had further to go.
Who was Jenny Lind?
Jenny Lind was more than a star. To describe the extent of her fame we might have to use a term such as ‘global celebrity’ or ‘megastar’. Cultural figures placed her at the pinnacle of her art. ‘No book or personality whatever has exerted a more ennobling influence on me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind,’ wrote Hans Christian Andersen. ‘For me she opened the sanctuary of art.’ In Clara Schumann’s estimation, ‘Lind has a genius for song such as can appear hardly once in centuries’. ‘The great event of the evening,’ wrote Queen Victoria after her London debut, ‘was Jenny Lind’s appearance and complete triumph. She has a most exquisite, powerful and really quite peculiar voice, so round, soft and flexible, and her acting is charming, touching and very natural.’
When and where was Jenny Lind born?
Yet Lind reached these heights from an unpromising beginning. The baptismal register for illegitimate children at the church of Sancta Clara in Stockholm records: ‘1820 October 6. Johanna Maria. Baptised. Parents unknown. Mother 27 years old.’
When was Jenny Lind’s extraordinary talent for singing first noticed?
Lind’s extraordinary abilities as a singer were noticed when she was tiny. While her mother disapproved of a stage career, she allowed singing lessons. Aged nine, Lind was brought to the attention of a singing master at the Royal Theatre, who was moved to tears. The head of the company at first refused to listen to so small a child; when he did, he cried too. The result was that in 1830 Jenny became a pupil at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, taught to sing, dance and act – all the skills required in the theatrical and operatic profession. Initially she appeared in plays put on by the Theatre – by 1833 as many as 22 of them.
Who plays Jenny Lind in The Greatest Showman?
2017’s hugely popular The Greatest Showman, in which Rebecca Ferguson plays Jenny Lind alongside Hugh Jackman as PT Barnum, is not the first time the Swedish soprano has been depicted on the big screen. Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s 1930 A Lady’s Morals was a highly fictionalised biopic of the singer, played on this occasion by Grace Moore, in which Lind falls in love (eventually) with a young composer Paul Brandt (Reginald Denny). Unlike in The Greatest Showman, Lind sings recognisable opera arias in A Lady’s Morals – Grace Moore was herself a leading soprano who sang at the New York Met Opera and enjoyed the nickname ‘The Tennessee Nightingale’.
What hospital did Chopin perform at in 1848?
One of her charity concerts that year was in aid of what is now the Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea, where there is still a Lind ward; of several other hospitals to benefit, one in Norwich also retains a Jenny Lind Children’s Department. A performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah raised sufficient funds for the establishment of the Mendelssohn Scholarship – still in existence – whose first recipient was Arthur Sullivan.
What did Jenny do in 1830?
The result was that in 1830 Jenny became a pupil at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, taught to sing, dance and act – all the skills required in the theatrical and operatic profession. Initially she appeared in plays put on by the Theatre – by 1833 as many as 22 of them.
How long was Jenny Lind in America?
Jenny Lind’s 21 months in America began with, at best, indifference to the fate of enslaved African-Americans, and ended in prominent public support for antislavery upon her departure; the soprano’s name headed Stowe’s list of those who contributed to the purchase of the Edmondsons’ freedom.
Who is Jenny Lind?
Born 200 years ago, the Swedish soprano embarked on headline-grabbing tour that shared the spotlight with a political maelstrom. Singer Jenny Lind was widely known as the "Swedish Nightingale.". (Illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via public domain and Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock / Getty Images)
Why did Barnum publicly reject Lind's claim?
When a rumor circulated that Lind had made a $1000 contribution to an antislavery group, Barnum publicly shot down the claim for fear it would alienate audiences in the South, where she was scheduled to tour for several months. “ [Barnum] is incredibly attuned to the political climate and the cultural climate.
What are some of the products that Jenny Lind made?
Americans, seeking to capitalize on Lind’s fame, merchandised a myriad of products in her name—hats, bonnets, cravats, gloves, handkerchiefs, soap, cigars, glassware, house s. Today, in the United States, schools, churches, halls and parks bear Lind’s name and, at least, 33 streets, according to the Census. You can visit towns named Jenny Lind in Arkansas, California and North Carolina. Most well-known today are Jenny Lind beds and cribs, modeled on the turned-spindle bed-frame that Lind slept on during her stay in New York.
What was Lind's disinterest in slavery?
Her seeming disinterest in the matter came to be a massive disappointment to abolitionists considering that her tour throughout the North transpired as protests erupted in reaction to the immediate enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.
When did Jenny Lind retire?
When she announced her retirement from opera in 1849, at the age of 28, the queen attended her final performance. In January 1850, the showman P.T. Barnum convinced Lind to undertake a concert tour of America. “At the time Barnum booked Jenny Lind, he had never heard her sing,” says Kellem.
How much did Lind pay Barnum?
He wanted a little more respectability.”. Lind, skeptical of Barnum’s reputation, demanded full payment of her fee, $187,000 ($6.2 million in 2020), be deposited in her London bank before setting off for the 150-concert tour.
When did Jenny Lind start performing?
At Jenny Lind’s London début in 1847 at the Haymarket, she gave a performance so arresting that Queen Victoria threw a bouquet of flowers at her feet.
Who was Jenny Lind in The Greatest Showman?
Who was Jenny Lind, the real-life opera singer in The Greatest Showman? Jenny Lind and Rebecca Ferguson as Jenny Lind. Picture: Getty/Rex. Nicknamed the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, Jenny Lind was a soprano whose voice was admired by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, no less!
Why is Lind the Nightingale called the Nightingale?
It was because of this that she got her nickname, the Swedish Nightingale. It has been speculated that Lind had a relationship with the great Romantic composer Frédéric Chopin. In the later years of his life, the composer suffered from tuberculosis, and she would sing to him to make him feel better.
What was the last opera Lind performed?
In 1849, Lind appeared in her final opera, Robert le Diable , in 1849, and toured the US the following year with Barnum. But Lind was a deeply religious woman, and left the stage after meeting a clergyman who told her that singing on the operatic stage was ‘evil’. Her mother had encouraged similar beliefs.
What did Chopin say about Lind?
Chopin said of Lind: “This Swede does not show herself in the ordinary light of day but in the magic rays of the aurora borealis”. Her high notes, to which he was apparently referring, were pianissimo and gorgeous. Frédéric Chopin. Picture: Getty.
Was Lind a popstar?
It is possible that the movie is making a point here about Lind being a popstar of her time – but being a 19th-century popstar was a slightly different ballgame. Back then, Lind was praised for her elaborate ornamentations, impressive runs and ability to sing an incredibly simple tune and make it sound spectacular.
Did Barnum ever hear Lind sing?
In a desperate attempt to raise his public profile and scrap his circus-entertainer image, Barnum risked his whole fortune for Lind: a singer he’d never even heard sing , and who was barely known in the US.
Overview
Arrival in New York City
The Atlantic docked in New York on 1 September 1850. The following day, The New York Herald reported on "the spectacle of some thirty or forty thousand persons congregated on all the adjacent piers. ... From all quarters, crowds ... could be seen hurrying down towards the Atlantic's dock." So great was people's desire for a glimpse of the star that several people were "severely bruised, some came off with bloody noses, and two boys, about twelve years of age, appeared t…
Background
Touring
Legacy
Lind gave 93 concerts in the United States for Barnum, earning her about $350,000; Barnum netted at least $500,000. From the outset, Lind had determined to give all her fees to charity. Her principal beneficiaries were free schools in her native Sweden, but she also distributed her U.S. concert earnings to local charities, including $1,000 to help build a church in Chicago, and $1,500 for the "mother church" of the Lutheran Augustana Synod in Andover, Illinois.
External links
• JennyLind.org website
• The Jenny Lind Archive
• Lind's Memoirs (1820–1851)
• Biography by N. Parker Willis (1951)