Scan 11
Musical Courier 1895-11-06: Vol 31 Iss 818, 1895
60 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 12. See the scan on archive.org.
1Helene Hastreiter.
3MME. HELENE HASTREITER, one of the greatest mezzo-soprano operatic singers of the age, has arrived in New York, and will shortly give the enormous ranks of her American friends an opportunity to welcome her in public. Mme. Hastreiter returns to the scene of numerous splendid triumphs in the zenith of her rare powers. She is the same dramatic, sympathetic, finely strung, noble-voiced artist who had the audiences of New York and every other leading city of America in which she sang at her feet some few short seasons ago. It is not Mme. Hastreiter's project on this visit to make her appearance in opera. Oratorio principally and concerts of a high order she proposes to sing in now, although in view of her superlative capacity it is to be hoped that some operatic temptation may present itself which will bring Helene Hastreiter back, if only incidentally, to that stage which she so superbly adorns.
5The name and career of a great artist like Helene Hastreiter are so well known all over the world that it is impossible to add anything to the accounts which have filled the musical columns of the newspapers whenever and wherever she has appeared.
7It was in January, 1886, after her triumphs in Italy, that she made her first appearance in New York, in the title rôle of Gluck's opera, Orpheus, in the Academy of Music, Mr. Theodore Thomas having prophesied her fitness for the part. The enthusiasm and sensation she created in this rôle are well remembered by everyone who witnessed her performances, by the musical critics, who filled their columns in her praise, and by the directors and managers of the American and National opera, who, whenever her name was announced, had the gratification of seeing the house filled to its utmost capacity. The scenes that occurred in the Academy at the close of her performances, when Helene Hastreiter was recalled and recalled and the vast audience refused to leave the auditorium before the lights were shut off, will also be well remembered. These triumphs were repeated in the principal cities of the United States.
9After her success in this country in grand opera, concerts and oratorio, she accepted an engagement at Her Majesty's Opera, Covent Garden, London, and appeared in La Favorita, Orpheus, and with Mme. Albani and Messrs. Jean and Edouard de Reszké in Lohengrin, and created in London and the English provinces the same success as in the United States. Lately Helene Hastreiter has devoted herself to high-class concerts; her répertoire in arias, ballads, scenes of opera of the old masters, as well as the modern school, is an extensive one, and it is in high-class concerts as well as in oratorios—of which Mme. Helene Hastreiter is one of the few living interpreters—that she makes her rentrée in the United States.
11Mme. Hastreiter has her permanent home in Italy, and has come to America this season with the view, primarily, of revisiting her family. Accomplishing this, she will also have time to appear in public. The range of this singer's art embraces German, French and Italian schools, while the perfect purity of her vocal production has made her an idolized favorite in Italy, where she has been long an artistic protégée of musical Queen Margherita. "None like you since Malibran" is what the Queen has said over and over to Helene Hastreiter. "But how can you tell?" the singer would reply. "I feel it," said the Queen, "I feel it myself; and then the authorities all tell me so; it is right."
13It was in Rome that Orfeo was put on for Helene Hastreiter for one night; just for an experiment, the Italians caring nothing for Gluck before her appearance. At twenty-four consecutive performances of the opera Queen Margherita sat each night the opera through, Mme. Hastreiter's impersonation of the title rôle having created an enormous artistic sensation. Here, too, in Italy, where oratorio is as little known as Gluck's music was originally little liked, Helene Hastreiter has in recent years brought the musical people of various prominent cities to a liking and appreciation of the principal dramatic arias from standard oratorios, which she has elected to sing for them in preference to music they familiarly knew.
15Breadth, dramatic instinct, a vocal instrument of passionate strength and beauty, with a diction clear, emphatic and polished, are the elements which Helene Hastreiter brings to her work, and which are so valuably potent in the field of oratorio. After opera the intensely, dramatic equipment of this singer, the largeness of her delivery, the superb control of her forces and the dignified purity of her methods are most admirably fitted to oratorio, and that she has chosen it as the principal field for her operations in America will be welcome news to all who, knowing Helene Hastreiter, know also the demands of pure oratorio tradition.
17Personally Mme. Hastreiter has changed little. She looks young, buoyant, in excellent health, and is as slender and elastic in her bearing as ever. The refined graciousness of her individuality, her magnetic sympathy, the irresistible charm of manner and the perpetual suggestion of depths and heights of feeling, with powerful dramatic skill to portray them, interest and enchain one in a rarely fascinating degree. Away from her art, in which she has had such rare triumphs—triumphs which have left no impress of aggressive confidence or self assurance—she is a woman of varied accomplishments. Her conversation is cultivated and delightful, disclosing at all points a keen intellectual discrimination and a quick, sympathetic understanding. Nature, which has been so artistically generous to Helene Hastreiter, seems also to have endowed her with rare qualities of heart, the same intense powers to feel which, penetrating through her work, have placed her always in sympathy with an audience beyond most of the fellow artists of her day.
19This native power to feel vibrates in a superb voice, which moves and sways her hearers beyond most voices on the present stage. It is a rare voice; mezzo in range, contralto in quality, and full of rich feeling and passionate dramatic strength. Now, in the ripeness of her powers and experience, Helene Hastreiter returns a great and noble artist, endowed with the temperament of genius and fitted by triumphantly successful practice to conquer in whatever field she undertakes. Few singers have been more missed in her own country than has she. None can be more welcome back.
21Kathrin Hilke.
23MISS KATHRIN HILKE is well known to the public as one of New York's leading sopranos. She has long been soloist at St. Patrick's Cathedral and at Temple Beth-el, Seventy-sixth and Fifth avenue, and has also had marked success on the concert and oratorio platform.
25Miss Hilke's voice, cut out by nature for large works and for large buildings, is of rich and even volume, exceedingly vibrant and dramatic in timbre, and used by her with admirable skill and judgment. In small surroundings or in compositions of the lighter genre Miss Hilke is heard to least advantage. Her vocal resources are abundant, her method broad, dignified and full of dramatic feeling and vigor, and it needs the demands of oratorio, of large arias, or other works in which the phrases are ample and sustained to show Miss Hilke's powers at their best. Not that she cannot sing a song or ballad with grace and finish at will, but hosts of singers can do this and do it well where few are found with the large grasp in style and the reliable vocal volume of Kathrin Hilke.
27The singer has just returned from Europe with renewed energy and spirit and in excellent trim for the season's work. She passed eleven weeks abroad sight seeing, but managed to hear incidentally some good music en route. In Berlin she heard Hänsel and Gretel admirably given, and she returns enthusiastic over the perfection of the choral work heard at Oxford and Cambridge, England. After hearing the English choir boys Miss Hilke is converted to boy sopranos, a genus she had never learned to care for very much before.
29Miss Hilke is a pupil of Mme. Frida Ashforth, and is always glad of an opportunity to avow that everything she knows she owes to that admirable teacher. Miss Hilke has resumed her work at both cathedral and temple, and last Sunday, November 8, began her concert season by singing with the Halévy Society, of New York, Krug's cantata King Fingal, a work most admirably suited to her voice and style.
31Her success with the Damrosch People's Singing Society last May was a pronounced one. The solo work in Bruch's Fair Ellen and Mendelssohn's Lauda Zion as sung by Kathrin Hilke aroused great enthusiasm. Later, in June, just before her departure for Europe, Miss Hilke sang at the Wilkesbarre, Pa., festival, Haydn's Seasons, with Watkin-Mills and Leonard Auty, when among others she received the following notice:
33The soloists were all very satisfactory, Watkin-Mills, the basso, repeating the success he achieved here last year. Miss Hilke also appeared to fine advantage, showing in many ways that she is a lovely singer. Her treatment of O How Pleasing to the Senses was charming and won her a rousing encore.—Wilkesbarre Record, June 12, 1895.
35At Newburgh also in June last Miss Hilke sang in the first production of Rutenberg's new work Alpha and Omega, where she scored an immense success and was given most flattering notices, as follows:
37The soloists were given ovations. Miss Hilke sang superbly and was beyond criticism.—Newburgh Daily News, June 13, 1895.
39The soloists had been specially chosen for the exacting and brilliant work required of them. Miss Hilke proved herself a most magnificent vocalist, her high notes being particularly pleasing, containing no shrill or harsh tones, and she rose with perfect satisfaction to the dramatic power and vocal possibilities of her part.—Newburgh Daily Register, June 13, 1895.
41Again in June, with the Middletown and Goshen vocal societies, she sang in Rossini's Moses in Egypt and scored a tremendous success. A notice of this is appended:
43The interest centred in Miss Kathrin Hilke, of New York, soprano of St. Patrick's Cathedral. She is musical to her finger tips. Strength and precision are to be found in every note of her work. She possesses a voice of rare brilliancy, flexibility and power. Her efforts last evening were superb, noticeably the lovely number in the third part. Our musical public will be honestly glad to hear this gifted singer again.—Middletown Daily Times, June 8, 1895.
45Press notices are also added of the Thanksgiving concert at Montreal last season, of the Schubert Club concert at Middletown, N.Y., and of Hummel's Terra Tremint in New York:
47Miss Hilke is a soprano of whom many favorable notices have appeared in the American press, and certainly her reputation has not suffered by her appearance here. Her singing of Guilman's Reverie was beyond all praise, while in her duet, I Feel Thy Guiding Spirit, she showed that she is possessed of a voice of rare compass as well as extraordinary sweetness.—Montreal Daily Star, November 23, 1894.
49Miss Hilke has a voice of great power and sweetness, which she used to great advantage, fairly captivating her audience.—Montreal Daily Witness, November 23, 1894.
51Those who were fortunate enough to be present in the St. James' Methodist Church enjoyed a rich musical treat. The program was a lengthy one, and although applause of any kind was naturally prohibited one could hardly restrain oneself at the conclusion of the solos by Miss Kathrin Hilke. This young lady has a soprano voice of unusual range and sweetness, and her contributions were thoroughly enjoyed by those present.—Montreal Gazette, November 23, 1894.
53Miss Hilke was in perfect voice and her singing was rapturously received. She displayed her wonderful control of a most pleasing and voluminous voice in this and in the Jewel Song from Faust.—Middletown Daily Press, May 11, 1895.
55Hummel's Terra Tremint was a grand piece of work and afforded Miss Hilke a splendid opportunity to display her magnificent voice.—New York Morning Journal, March 26, 1895.
57The several soprano solos were superbly sung by Miss Hilke. Her clear, high notes mounted to the arched dome in a flight of pure melody.—New York Herald, March 26, 1895.
59Miss Hilke's repertory is large, and, as well as a voluminous list of songs, arias and secular and sacred music of
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