Maria Jeritza (born Marie Jedličková; 6 October 1887 – 10 July 1982) was a
dramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is a type of operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually (but not always) mean less agility than lighter voices but a ...
, long associated with the
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...
(1912–1934 and 1950-1953) and the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
(1921–1932 and 1951). Her rapid rise to fame, beauty and personality earned her the nickname "The Moravian Thunderbolt".
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The m ...
, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1887 as Marie Jedličková. She was trained at the
Brno Conservatory
The Brno Conservatory, also Brno Conservatoire ( cs, Konzervatoř Brno), was established in Brno on 25 September 1919 by Moravian composer Leoš Janáček.
History
Leoš Janáček attempted to establish and improve high musical education in Br ...
, and later was a pupil of Estelle Liebling in New York City. In 1910, she made her debut as ''Elsa'', in Wagner's ''
Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolf ...
'', at
Olomouc
Olomouc (, , ; german: Olmütz; pl, Ołomuniec ; la, Olomucium or ''Iuliomontium'') is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019).
Located on t ...
. The Emperor
Franz Josef
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his ...
heard her and immediately ordered that she be offered a contract at the Imperial Hofoper, Vienna.
She created the roles of ''Blanchefleur'' in Kienzl's
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
Ariadne auf Naxos
(''Ariadne on Naxos''), Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work's ...
'' (1912), the Empress in his ''
Die Frau ohne Schatten
' (''The Woman without a Shadow''), Op. 65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered at the V ...
Die tote Stadt
' (German for ''The Dead City''), Op. 12, is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold set to a libretto by Paul Schott, a collective pseudonym for the composer and his father, Julius Korngold. It is based on the 1892 novel '' Bruges-la-Mo ...
'' (Hamburg, 1920), though later became famous for her leading role of Marietta/Marie in the same opera in its January 1921 Vienna premiere, which was also the role in which she debuted at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
on 19 November 1921.
On 16 November 1926, she starred in the title role of Puccini's ''
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is " Nessun dorma", ...
'' in its North American premiere at the Metropolitan, where she also created the title or leading soprano roles in Janáček's ''
Jenůfa
''Její pastorkyňa'' (''Her Stepdaughter''; commonly known as ''Jenůfa'' ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play ''Její pastorkyňa'' by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed ...
I gioielli della Madonna
''I gioielli della Madonna'' (English: ''The Jewels of the Madonna'') is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event.
It was first performed at the on ...
'' (1925), Korngold's ''
Violanta
''Violanta'', Op. 8, is a one-act opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the Austrian playwright Hans Müller-Einigen. It is Korngold's second opera, written when he was seventeen years old.
Performance history
It was premiered o ...
'' (1927), Richard Strauss's '' Die Ägyptische Helena'' (1928), and Suppé's ''Boccaccio'' (1931) and ''Donna Juanita'' (1932).
She was as popular at the Metropolitan as in Vienna, especially as
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language drama ...
Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884) ...
's
Thaïs
Thaïs or Thais ( el, Θαΐς; flourished 4th century BC) was a famous Greek ''hetaira'' who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. Likely from Athens, she is most famous for instigating the burning of Persepolis. At the time, Thaï ...
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár ( ; hu, Lehár Ferenc ; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is ''The Merry Widow'' (''Die lustige Witwe'').
Life a ...
wrote the song 'Du und ich sind für einander bestimmt'.
Personal life and death
After a two-year marriage to a man named Friedrich Wiener, she married an Austrian, Leopold Salvator Freiherr Popper von Podhragy (1886-1986). She married her third husband in 1935, Hollywood mogul Winfield R. Sheehan, who died in 1945. In 1948, she married New Jersey businessman Irving Seery and moved to a mansion in the Forest Hill neighborhood of
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Orange, New Jersey
The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000.
Orange was original ...