Emma Eames
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Emma Eames (August 13, 1865 - June 13, 1952) was a successful opera soprano.
The daughter of an international courts lawyer, she was born in Shanghai, China. Attending school in Boston, she studied with the famous teacher Mathilde Marchesi, although she would later downplay Marchesi's influence on her voice. She was eventually called upon to play the heroine in Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Opéra. Debuting in 1889, she would play the role many other times in the next two years, finally leaving in 1891 for personal reasons.
The same year, she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York playing the same role. New York was where she would have the most acclaim, performing in operas until retiring in 1909. She also made appearances at the Royal Opera House in London. She spent her free time touring in concerts around the United States after her retirement from the Met, until finally removing herself from the business entirely in 1916.
Her Voice and Repertoire
Despite having a reputation as a "cold" performer (although the saying "last night there was skating on the Nile" is simply an operatic urban legend), Eames' records show a singer of considerable warmth and interpretation, at times even sounding over-the-top, especially with her generous use of portamento. She was unhappy with the way she sounded on her records, although in 1939 she went on a radio show and picked out some her most famous records, and she sounds appropriately immodest about them. Eames can also be heard in the Mapleson Cylinders, where the size of her voice can be gauged. In the bit from the end of the Triumphal Scene in Aida, her voice seems to literally dominate the entire chorus and orchestra.Eames started out mostly as a lyric soprano, but her big, somewhat dark-timbred voice allowed her to expand her repertoire into more dramatic parts. Unlike her nemesis Nellie Melba (see below) Eames was an adventurous, ambitious singer and had a wide repertoire, including Aida, Lohengrin, Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, Le Nozze di Figaro, Faust, and Don Giovanni. Eames claimed Aida and Tosca were her two "babies," and sounds quite possessive about them in her autobiography (see below).
Personal Life
Eames married twice, first to the painter Julian Story, and then to the famous baritone Emilio di Gigorza, with whom she made some records. Both marriages ended in divorce and much bitterness. She had no children, but in her autobiographies admitted that she was pressured into a "medical procedure" that is obviously an abortion. Eames was a great lover of animals, especially dogs.Autobiography
In 1929 Eames wrote an autobiography, Some Memories and Reflections, in which she claims opportunities were constantly taken away from her by an unnamed soprano who is obviously Nellie Melba. Emma Eames was definitely a card-carrying member of the very large "I Hate Melba" club. She seems to have detested Melba in a major way, probably with valid reasons. Later in life, she admitted Melba had a beautiful voice, but said of Melba's performance in Faust that "She would have hung the jewels off her nose if she could." In her autobiography she alludes to a soprano who tried (and failed) at her debut in Aida at the Metropolitan. The mysterious soprano is widely thought to be Celestina Boninsegna who later in life would blame Eames for her failures at the Metropolitan. It's an opera anecdote that years later Boninsegna would ask, "Eames, e morta?" and was quite deflated to know that Eames was still alive and well. Eames' autobiography is somewhat immodest and snooty. She brags of being "very beautiful" when she was young (she says she's of an age when she can brag about her youthful beauty), and goes into some detail about her great taste in makeup and costume design, especially a "secret formula" she used to bronze her skin while singing Aida that she guards with Coca-Cola-like secrecy. Her husband Julian Story also disappears somewhat mysteriously from her life, and at times it comes across that the great love of her life was her dog Peeny. Despite these limitations, her biography is fun and interesting to read, and not a bland ghost-written whitewashed book, and judging from the pictures it seems like her taste in costumes and clothing was indeed excellent. Although her favorite subject is obviously herself, we do get a good dose of behind-the-scenes gossip. For one, we learn that her partner Jean de Reszke was fond of snorting a "white powder" before performances (obviously cocaine}. She also alludes to being forced to undergo a "procedure" that obviously sounds like an abortion. Her description of Cosima Wagner is pretty funny, as is description of Mathilde Marchesi. Eames at times sounds like she has an axe to grind but it's fun watching her grind the axe with such a keen eye and sharp wit.Later Years
She relocated to New York in 1936, where she became a renowned vocal instructor. Eames was quite certain that she was superior to her later soprano counterparts (she said of Frances Alda, "She's good enough for the chorus!"). However, she did like to pick out promising voices that lived up to her high standards, like Kirsten Flagstad, Eleanor Steber, and Conchita Supervia. In New York she was fond of attending Broadway shows. Eames died in 1952 at the age of 86.
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