Mai Kalna (1875-1934) was an American soprano opera singer.

Early life

Mai Kalna was from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California, the daughter of Margaret E. Convis. She was educated in France. She studied voice with Mathilde Marchesi, and pursued further voice and dramatic training in Munich with Felix Mottl and in Berlin with

Rosa Sucher Rosa Sucher (23 February 1849 – 16 April 1927), née Hasselbeck, was a German operatic dramatic soprano renowned for her Wagnerian performances. Life Sucher was born in Velburg. Her debut occurred in Munich in 1871 as Waltraute in ''Die Walkü ...

. She also studied with

Cosima Wagner Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner (née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German compo ...

at Bayreuth.

Career

As a young singer in London, she sang in operas starring

Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century ...

, Emma Albani, and

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...

. She sang the title role of ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opér ...

'' in several European cities. Her Berlin debut was in ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spani ...

''. In 1906 she was part of a concert in Prague to raise relief funds after the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...

. In 1908 she joined the

Carl Rosa Opera Company The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, and his wife, British operatic soprano Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company premiere ...

. She toured India, China, Singapore, and southeast Asia in 1914. While she was touring in Asia, the soprano Lillian Nordica died in Indonesia; Kalna was marketed to Nordica's audiences for the rest of her tour. When

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

began, she returned to the United States, but lost many of her belongings in the haste of her travels. She and her husband appeared at a benefit concert for the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desig ...

on Long Island in 1917; she also gave a benefit concert for Sherbrooke Hospital in Quebec that year. In 1918 she was described as "modishly magnificent" in the ''New York Times'', when she gave a concert at the Princess Theatre. That same year she appeared in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

in a production of ''The Reclamation'' by Clifford Parker. In 1922 she was touring the United States as Brünhilde in a production of ''

Die Walküre (; ''The Valkyrie''), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's '' Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on ...

'', with the United States Opera Company. She also sang for radio concerts in the 1920s. Kalna and her husband wrote songs together, including ''Valse Californienne'' (1918). In 1921 they were both elected trustees of the First Independent Christian Science Church, a breakaway

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

congregation in New York City, headed by Helena Barwis.

Personal life

Mai Kalna married fellow American singer Webster Norcross. She died in 1934, aged 59 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT: 1875 births 1934 deaths American operatic sopranos Singers from San Francisco Classical musicians from California 20th-century American women opera singers