She was a musical
prodigy and she began singing at the age of five. She was only 15, when settled
in Kansas City. She showed an amazing talent in piano and violin playing. Then
she studied with Frank La Forge in New York, where she also gave her first concerts.
After additional education in Europe she made her debut in 1926 - only 19 years
old - at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Gilda in "Rigoletto"
(opposite Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Giuseppe de Luca). She had a sensational
success. Both the critics and the audience enthusiastically celebrated them. A
special train was used from her hometown Kansas City to New York. The following
three seasons she remained a member of the Metropolitan Opera. There she sang
in 1926 in the premiere of "Le Rossignol" by I. Stravinsky. At the
Metropolitan Opera her repertoire included
the Queen of the Night in "Zauberflöte", Lucia di Lammermoor,
the Olympia in ‘’Les contes d'Hoffmann’’, the Philine in "Mignon" and
the Queen of Shemakan in N. Rimsky-Korsakov ‘s ‘’The Golden Cockerel’’. She
appeared at the Metropolitan Opera until 1929. A triumphant North American tour
in 1928 marked the peak of her career, which ended as quickly as it had begun.
In 1929 she retired to her farm and did not appear again until 1933. In 1933 she
appeared as Gilda at the Chicago Opera, but without success. In 1934 she tried
Vitaphone sound film, later she became a radio singer. In 1939, encouraged by
successes on American radio, she reappeared at the concert hall, but remained
without any major successes, whereupon she withdrew from musical life. Then she
lived in Hollywood. She was briefly married the pianist and accompanist Michael
Raucheisen (1889-1983).
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