Editing Emma Abbott

{{short description|American operatic soprano}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Emma Abbott
| image         = Emma Abbott 1870.jpg
| alt           = Studio photo of Emma Abbott taken circa 1870
| birth_name    = 
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1850|12|09}} 
| birth_place   = [[Chicago]], Illinois, U.S.
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1891|01|05|1850|12|09}} 
| death_place   = [[Salt Lake City]], Utah, U.S.
| resting_place = [[Oak Grove Cemetery (Gloucester, Massachusetts)]]
| other_names   = 
| occupation    = Operatic soprano
| years_active  = 
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = 
| spouse        = Eugene Wetherell
| partner       = 
| children      = 
}}

'''Emma Abbott''' (December 9, 1850 – January 5, 1891) was an American [[operatic]] [[soprano]] and [[impresario]] known for her pure, clear voice of great flexibility and volume.<ref name="BDA1906">{{BDA1906 |wstitle= Abbott, Emma |volume= 1 |pages= 26-27 |short=}}</ref>

==Early life==
Emma Abbott was born in 1850 in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], the daughter of the struggling Chicago musician Seth Abbott and his wife, Almira (née Palmer). As a child, she and her brother George studied singing, [[piano]], [[guitar]] and [[violin]] with their father.

The family moved to [[Peoria, Illinois]], Emma was eight years of age when, she made her first appearance on the stage, singing at a concert given in her father's office in Peoria.<ref name="BDA1906" /> In 1854, Professor Abbott was unable to find a sufficient number of music students to make ends meet and the family suffered from financial problems.<ref name=century/> To help out, she and George began performing professionally when Emma was nine years old. She made her debut as a guitar player and singer in Peoria, Illinois in 1859, with George on the violin, and was teaching guitar by age thirteen.<ref>[http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/23027 Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829003913/http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/23027 |date=August 29, 2008 }}, picturehistory.com; accessed October 5, 2015.</ref>

==Career==
[[File:EmmaAbbott.jpg|thumb|upright|Emma Abbott]]
In 1866, she joined an itinerant concert troupe and toured the country.  While performing on the road she met and was befriended by [[Clara Louise Kellogg]]. Upon hearing Abbott in a concert in Toledo, Kellogg made it a point to meet her and encourage her to pursue an opera career and gave her a letter of introduction.<ref name="century">Willard and Livermore, Eds. (1893) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zXEEAAAAYAAJ A Woman of the Century]'', pp. 2–3, [[Charles Wells Moulton]], New York (Digitized by Google Books)</ref>  Consequently, Abbott studied in [[New York City]] under [[Achille Errani]], and made her concert début there in December 1871.<ref name="ReferenceA">Hitchcock and Preston, ''Grove Music Online''.<!--publishing info needed; ISBN/ISSN (if any), page(s)--></ref>

In 1872, Abbott went abroad to study with Antonio Sangiovanni in [[Milan]]. This was followed by further studies with [[Mathilde Marchesi]], [[Pierre François Wartel]] and [[Enrico Delle Sedie]] in [[Paris]]. She appeared in several productions in Paris, earning rave reviews for her fine soprano voice. She was awarded a contract with the [[Royal Opera, London|Royal Opera]] in [[London]] and made her début at [[Covent Garden]] as Marie in ''[[La fille du régiment|La Fille du régiment]]'' in 1876. However, her contract was cancelled shortly thereafter when she refused to sing Violetta from [[Verdi]]'s ''[[La Traviata]]'' on moral grounds.<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Willard|editor1-first=Frances Elizabeth|editor2-last=Rice|editor2-first=Mary Ashton|title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy biographical sketches of Leading American Women of all walks of life|publisher=Moulton|year=1893|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_zXEEAAAAYAAJ/page/n312 3]|quote=While in Paris, she suffered an illness that threatened the destruction of her voice. She made a successful debut, however, and she had there a warm friend in the Baroness Rothschild. Numerous enticing offers were made to her by European managers|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_zXEEAAAAYAAJ}}</ref> That same year she secretly married Eugene Wetherell (d. 1889) and they returned to the United States, where she remained for the rest of her life.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

===Abbott English Opera Company===
On February 23, 1877, Abbott made her American operatic début in New York, once again portraying Marie. In 1878 she and her husband Eugene Wetherell, organized an opera company known by her name (the Emma Abbott Grand English Opera Company<ref>{{Cite web|title=Opera program - Emma Abbott Grand English Opera Company in Lucretia Borgia; The Mikado; Bohemian Girl; Il Travatore; Crispino; Linda of Chamouni; ; Mignon; Chimes of Normandy {{!}} Digital Pitt|url=https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt:31735068203722/viewer#page/1/mode/2up|access-date=2020-11-24|website=digital.library.pitt.edu}}</ref>), which toured extensively throughout the United States.<ref name="BDA1906" /> It was the first opera company formed by a woman in the United States. Her husband ran the business end of the company and she managed the artistic side, often starring in the productions.<ref>{{Cite book|last=MARTIN|first=SADIE E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4vDNO25ScscC&q=eugene|title=THE LIFE AND PROFESSIONAL CAREER OF EMMA ABBOTT|date=1891|language=en}}</ref>

The company garnered a reputation among the public for quality productions and was quite successful. Among the notable roles that Abbott sang with the company are Juliette in [[Gounod]]'s ''[[Roméo et Juliette]]'', Virginia in ''[[Paul et Virginie]]'', Josephine in ''[[H.M.S. Pinafore]]'', the title role in [[Flotow]]'s ''[[Martha (opera)|Martha]]'', Amina in [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]]'s ''[[La Sonnambula]]'', and Violetta in ''La Traviata'', a role to which she apparently no longer objected,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> however, instead of singing ''Addio del passato'', she made Violetta expire with ''[[Nearer, my God, to Thee]]''.<ref>''The Musical Times'', May 1891, p. 274.</ref>

Throughout her career, she retained artistic control over her troupe, which sometimes numbered 60. Although the company's repertoire included works from the French, Italian and English operatic literatures, they always performed in English. Many of the works were abridged and interpolated songs were commonplace. For this reason the company and Abbott were not popular with many music critics who were unhappy with the changes to the standard repertoire. However, the company was incredibly popular with the public and was consistently financially successful. Abbott herself became known among Americans as 'the people's prima donna'.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

==Death==
Abbott continued performing up until her sudden death from [[pneumonia]] in [[Salt Lake City, Utah]] in 1891, aged 40.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw02jame_0|url-access=registration|quote=emma abbott.|title=Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary|last1=James|first1=Edward T.|last2=James|first2=Janet Wilson|last3=Boyer|first3=Paul S.|date=1971-01-01|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674627345|pages=[https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw02jame_0/page/2 2]|language=en|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>  She is buried at [[Oak Grove Cemetery (Gloucester, Massachusetts)|Oak Grove Cemetery]] in [[Gloucester, Massachusetts]] along with her husband.<ref>{{cite web|title=Take a walking tour of Oak Grove Cemetery|url=http://gloucester.wickedlocal.com/article/20151209/NEWS/151206415|website=Wicked Loca1 Gloucester|access-date=24 March 2018}}</ref><ref>Resting Places: The Burial Places of 14,000 Famous Persons, by Scott Wilson</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{Cite Grove |last=Hitchcock |first=H. Wiley |last2=Preston |first2=Katherine K. |title=Emma Abbott}}
* [https://archive.org/details/lifeprofessional00mart ''The life and professional career of Emma Abbott'' By Martin, Sadie E.| 1891]
* ''Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607–1896.'' Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1967.
* ''Opera and the Golden West: The Past, Present, and Future of Opera in the U.S.A.'' By DiGaetani, John L., 1994.
* ''Eugene Field & His Age'' By Saum, Lewis O., 2001.
*{{Wikisource-inline|list=
**{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Abbott, Emma |short=x |noicon=x}}
**{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Abbott, Emma |short=x |noicon=x}}
** "[[:s:Woman of the Century/Emma Abbott|Abbott, Emma]]" in: Willard, Frances Elizabeth & Ashton Rice Livermore, Mary (ed.) (1893) - ''A Woman of the Century''.
}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Emma Abbott |sopt=t}}
*[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1021/8371/products/STAGE2_030.jpg?v=1467261065  portrait and short bio] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116163141/https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1021/8371/products/STAGE2_030.jpg?v=1467261065 |date=January 16, 2017 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbott, Emma}}
[[Category:1850 births]]
[[Category:1891 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century American actresses]]
[[Category:American stage actresses]]
[[Category:19th-century American women opera singers]]
[[Category:Singers from Illinois]]
[[Category:Singers from New York City]]
[[Category:Musicians from Peoria, Illinois]]
[[Category:American operatic sopranos]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Utah]]
[[Category:Classical musicians from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Classical musicians from Illinois]]
[[Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century]]