Olive Fremstad (14 March 1871 – 21 April 1951) was the stage name of Anna Olivia Rundquist, a celebrated

Swedish-American Swedish Americans () are Americans of Swedish descent. The history of Swedish Americans dates back to the early colonial times, with notable migration waves occurring in the 19th and early 20th centuries and approximately 1.2 million arrivi ...

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 ...

who sang in both the

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...

and

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

ranges.Rosenthal and Warrack (1979) p. 180

Background

Born in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, she received her early education and musical training in Christiania,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. When she was 12 years of age her parents moved to America, settling in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. Even before leaving Christiania, her progress on the piano had been such that she had appeared as an infant prodigy. She was adopted by an American couple living in St. Peter, Minnesota, taking on their surname of Fremstad. In St. Peter, she worked as a church organist at the local Swedish Lutheran Church. She began her vocal training in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

with

Frederick Bristol Frederick E. Bristol (4 November 1839 in Brookfield, Connecticut – 1932 in N.Y. City, New York) was a celebrated American voice teacher who operated private studios in Boston and New York City during the second half of the 19th century and early ...

in 1890 after singing in church choirs, then studied in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

with

Lilli Lehmann Lilli Lehmann (born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch; 24 November 1848 – 17 May 1929) was a German operatic dramatic coloratura soprano. She was also a voice teacher and animal welfare advocate. Biography The fu ...

before making her operatic debut as a mezzo-soprano as Azucena in

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, recei ...

's '' Il trovatore'' at the

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Opera in 1895. She remained there for at least three years, before going on to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Bayreuth Bayreuth ( or ; High Franconian German, Upper Franconian: Bareid, ) is a Town#Germany, town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 11 ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Career

She appeared at the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...

from 1903 until 1914, specializing in

Wagnerian Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most ...

roles. By that time she was singing as a dramatic soprano. Fremstad appeared before the public 351 times as a member of the Met's stellar roster, most frequently as Venus in ''

Tannhäuser Tannhäuser (; ), often stylized "The Tannhäuser", was a German Minnesinger and traveling poet. Historically, his biography, including the dates he lived, is obscure beyond the poetry, which suggests he lived between 1245 and 1265. His name ...

'', Kundry in ''

Parsifal ''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance ''Parzival'' of th ...

'', Sieglinde, Isolde and Elsa in ''

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 Wo ...

''. American audiences never warmed much to her interpretation of the title role in

Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, '' Carmen'', which has become ...

's ''

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 O ...

'', but she had sung the role opposite

Enrico Caruso Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyric tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles that r ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

the night before the city was wrecked by the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

and ensuing fire. (She and Caruso escaped the disaster unharmed.) Later in her career, Fremstad experienced difficulties with the top notes of the dramatic soprano range. She retired from professional singing in 1920 and briefly attempted teaching, but her patience for anything less than perfection in her pupils proved to be slim. One "lesson" involved the close examination of a dissected human head preserved in a jar. The head was kept on a prominent shelf, right as you came into her studio. She was mystified when her few students fled in horror, unwilling to study the human

larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ (anatomy), organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal ...

in such a setting. She used this head as a tool for determining whether or not prospective students had the "mettle" for an opera career. For Fremstad, this wasn't anything special; when studying for the role of

Salome Salome (; , related to , "peace"; ), also known as Salome III, was a Jews, Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II and princess Herodias. She was granddaughter of Herod the Great and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. She is known from the New T ...

in the Metropolitan's premier production, she had gone to the morgue in New York to find out just how much she should stagger under the weight of the head of

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. Her output of recordings is meager. In fact, she believed that recordings could not capture the magic of her performance, and insisted that people hear her live. She made approximately 40 recordings from 1911 to 1915, only 15 of which were ever released. Music critic J.B. Steane has called Fremstad "one of the greatest of Wagnerians"; but in his ''The Record of Singing'', Volume 1, the opera historian

Michael Scott Michael Scott, Michael Scot, or Mike Scott may refer to: Academics * Michael Scot (1175 – c. 1232), mathematician and astrologer * Michael L. Scott (born 1959), American academic and computer scientist * Mike Scott, British linguist and designer ...

describes her as always being more of a mezzo-soprano than a genuine soprano. Scott, however, acknowledges her impressive qualities as an interpretive artist. Fremstad allegedly professed to have no interest in romantic entanglements. However, she wed twice, with both marriages ending in divorce. She and her secretary,

Mary Watkins Cushing Mary Watkins Cushing (born Mary Fitch Watkins; January 11, 1889 – October 4, 1974) was an American music and dance critic, covering the fields of opera and modern dance. Cushing maintained a close relationship with opera star Olive Fremstad (1 ...

, also lived together for some time. She died in

Irvington, New York Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson, is a suburban Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village of the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, Un ...

, but was buried alongside her parents in a family plot in the village cemetery in

Grantsburg, Wisconsin Grantsburg is a village in Burnett County, Wisconsin, Burnett County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,341 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The village is located within the Grantsburg, Burnett County, Wisconsin, Tow ...

. Fremstad was the model for Thea Kronborg, the heroine of

Willa Cather Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including ''O Pioneers!'', ''The Song of the Lark (novel), The Song of the Lark'', a ...

's novel '' The Song of the Lark''. Her relationship with Cushing was fictionalized in the novel ''Of Lena Geyer'', by

Marcia Davenport Marcia Davenport (Birth name, née Glick; June 9, 1903 – January 16, 1996) was an American writer and music critic. She is best known for her 1932 biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the first American published biography of Mozart. ...

References

Other sources

*Cushing, Mary Fitch Watkins.
The Rainbow Bridge, a biography of Olive Fremstad
' (

G. P. Putnam's Sons G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. History The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam an ...

, 1954) *Rosenthal, H. and Warrack, J. ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'' (2nd Edition, Oxford University Press. pp. 180–181. 1979) *Steane, J.B., ''The Grand Tradition: Seventy Years of Singing on Record'' (

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City that has published several notable American authors, including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjori ...

, 1974) * Scott, Michael, ''

The Record of Singing ''The Record of Singing'' is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record. It was issued on LP (with accompanying books) by EMI, successor to the Gramophone Company — perhaps the ...

'', Volume 1 (Duckworth, London, 1977),

External links

Olive Fremstad scrapbooks (the singer's personal collection)
in th
Music Division
o
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Olive Fremstad recordings
at the

Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database catalog of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The 78rpm era was the time period in which any flat disc records were being played at ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fremstad, Olive 1871 births 1951 deaths American operatic sopranos 19th-century American actresses American stage actresses American operatic mezzo-sopranos Swedish expatriates in Norway Swedish emigrants to the United States Actresses from Stockholm 20th-century American actresses Singers from Stockholm