contralto

Contralto at the Met.

LOC has about a dozen great photos of her misfiled under Braslav. Example: lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@1(...

Thanks for the heads up on the photos, pawelkan! Will investigate and see about getting the Braslau/Braslav corrections made.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Braslau

Sophie Braslau (1892-1935) was a contralto prominent in United States opera, starting with her debut in New York City's Metropolitan Opera in 1913 when she was just 21 years of age. [1] In her obituary The New York Times wrote, "The singer considered as her greatest triumph an experience during a rehearsal for a concert at Richmond, Va., where she had been sent to substitute for Mme. Louise Homer. After an introduction to the musicians in the empty auditorium, she sang an aria for rehearsal."

"I finished and there came a dead silence," she recalled later, "quickly followed by the strangest sound I had ever heard.  The musicians tapped their music stands with their bows or clapped their hands." In a few seconds it seemed as if pandemonium had let loose, and how happy I was! It was really the finest moment of my life. My mother was there, and it seemed to me that this was her triumph, for the evening concert was a great success and this was the first big joy she had experienced after her many years of devoted supervision."

(Many photographs of Mme. Homer can be seen in the LOC Bain Collection here.) There are currently nine photographs of Sophie Braslau in the LOC Bain Collection from c.1910-1915 here.)

Louise Beatty Homer (1871-1947): sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-m... Anne Homer (Doerflinger) (1907-1995): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Homer Katharine "Kay" Homer (Fryer) (1907-1997): orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1997/articles/1997-v12n01-...

More Bain/LOC photos of Madame Louise Homer:

www.cantabile-subito.de/Contraltos/Homer__Louise/haupttei... Louise Homer (1871-1947) was a Pittsburgh-born contralto working in the 1910s. She retired from the opera in 1919. She was also the mother of six children, and the aunt of composer Samuel Barber.

Louise starred as Marina in the first American production of Boris Godounow at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC in 1913. Interestingly, the Victor Book of Opera shows a different woman in this same costume with the caption "Homer as Marina." Also in the cast were Paul Althouse as Dimitri, Adamo Didur as Godounow, Anna Case as Theodore, Maria Duchene as the nurse, and Leonora Sparkes as Xenia.

Thanks for the additional information on Louise Homer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Homer

See also