Cather Endnotes

 

Cather Prototypes

 

Mary Garden (prototype for Eden Bower in Coming, Aphrodite! and one of the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire in Scandal)

"Scottish American soprano Mary Garden, the prototype for Eden Bower..." Explanatory Notes p. 379, Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather, Willa Cather Scholarly Edition, University of Nebraska Press 2009

"See the Historical Essay (p.341) for an account of Mary Garden, the prototype for Eden Bower." ibid. p.385

 

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).

"Kitty Ayrshire: See the Historical Essay (pp. 339-43) for accounts of Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, and Sibyl Sanderson, the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire." ibid. p.410

 

Lillian Nordica (prototype for Cressida Garnet in The Diamond Mine)

"See the Historical Essay (pp. 334-39) for an account of Lillian Nordica, the prototype for Cressida Garnet." ibid. p.395

 

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)

"soprano soloist: The protytpe is probably Austrian-Czech contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861-1936), a singer Cather admired and knew personally. She heard Schumann-Heink sing Wagnerian opera in Pittsburgh in 1899 and reviewed her performance in the Lincoln Courier (10 June 1899). Like the singer in the story, she had many (six) children." ibid. p.425-426

 

Lucrezia Bori (prototype for "Spanish woman" in Scandal.

 

 

The following Cather prototypes with opera connections have also been identified by Cather scholars, however, no known recordings were ever made by any of these artists.

Katherine Fisk

(prototype for "a contralto" in A Death in the Desert): "This probably refers to contralto Katherine Fisk, who had an extraordinarily strong voice." ibid. Explanatory Notes, p. 450). Fisk sang with the Metropolitan Opera House circa 1900 and then toured the country with Lillian Nordica (cf. Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1926 Obituary). "In 1894 Willa Cather praised Fisk in a series of articles for the Lincoln Evening News. (cf. Cather, Willa (1970). The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902, Volume 2. U of Nebraska Press. p. 640. Retrieved 2 February 2020." Wikipedia

In 1895 Cather said about her "She is great enough as a woman to become a great artist" (at the time Fisk was performing with Nellie Melba in England)." Wikipedia


Sibyl Sanderson, one of the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire, made no recordings.

"Kitty Ayrshire: See the Historical Essay (pp. 339-43) for accounts of Geraldine Farra, Mary Garden, and Sibyl Sanderson, the prototypes for Kitty Ayrshire,Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather, Willa Cather Scholarly Edition, University of Nebraska Press 2009.

 

 

Edison "Famous Artists"

Here's what the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive says about Edison's Grand Opera records and Edison's "famous opera performers of the day":

"While well-known overtures and classical works figured prominently in Edison's Gold-Moulded and Amberol cylinders, performances by professionally trained opera singers were largely issued on several special series of Grand Opera Cylinders...Famous performers of the day are found here, including Florencio Constantino, Leo Slezak, Josephine Jacoby, and other well-known opera singers of the time."

 

Edison Grand Opera ad, The Talking Machine World, February 1907

 

(3) Discography of American Historical Recordings - Latest access dates for each of the prototypes.

Geraldine Farrar: Discography of American Historical Recordings s.v. "Farrar, Geraldine," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/103269.

Ernestine Schumann-Heink: Discography of American Historical Recordings s.v. "Schumann-Heink, Ernestine," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/105329.

Lillian Nordica: Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Nordica, Lillian," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/109212.

Olive Fremstad: Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Fremstad, Olive," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/105758.

Mary Garden: Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Garden, Mary," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102667.

Lucrezia Bori: Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Bori, Lucrezia," accessed May 21, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/103869.

 

Lucrezia Bori: Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Edison matrix 175. Mi chiamano Mimi / Lucrezia Bori," accessed May 15, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000160158/175-Mi_chiamano_Mimi.

 

 

 

"Opera and drama for the poor workingman and his family for a nickel..." Thomas Edison

 

The Talking Machine World, May 15, 1914, p. 30

 

 

"Three American Singers: Louise Homer, Geraldine Farrar, Olive Fremstad" McClure's Magazine, 42 (December 1913): 33-48

"THREE women are at this moment dominating the most critical audience and the most splendid operatic stage in the world— the Metropolitan Opera House of New York. One of these women came out of a new, crude country, fought her way against every kind of obstacle, and conquered by sheer power of will and character. One of them has lived a sort of fairy-tale of good fortune from the time she began to sing. Each one has achieved a supremely individual success. The careers of these three great singers make one of the most interesting stories in the history of American achievement."

GERALDINE FARRAR

THE story of Geraldine Farrar's early youth is well known; it is the kind of story that Americans like. We admire success in which there is a large element of "luck," more than success laboriously won. We like a rich natural endowment, native "gift," fame in early youth. The mining-camp ideal obtains widely with us, and Miss Farrar's story is one that the ranchman or the miner can understand; it gratifies his national pride, meets his sense of the picturesque. When he puts a "Farrar record" into his phonograph, he has something of the feeling of part-ownership that our fathers had when they spoke of Mary Anderson as "our Mary."