Since the dawn of opera around the year 1600, the art form has been a family affair. For centuries, touring singers have married each other and left their babies at home with relatives. When those children got old enough to perform, they sometimes became part of the show. Here are just a few of the many opera-loving parents and children through the ages.
Die Familie Weber
Fridolin Weber (1733-1779) sang bass roles and often prompted for German opera companies. His half-brother was the father of composer Carl Maria von Weber. Fridolin and his wife, Cäcilia, had four daughters: Josepha, Aloysia, Constanze, and Sophie. Constanze married Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and played the role of a housewife. Her sisters all sang professionally. Josepha was the soprano for whom Mozart wrote the role of the Queen of the Night. She and Aloysia had significant opera careers in German-speaking countries. Sophie sang one season at the Burgtheater in Vienna but was not much heard from after that.
La Famiglia Rossini
Composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was the son of a soprano and a horn player. At the age of 6, he was playing the triangle in his father’s ensemble. His mother was a leading singer in the theaters of the Romagna region and his father often played in the orchestra when she sang. Young Gioachino was already writing chamber music at the age of 12 and had his first opera produced when he was 18.
La Familia García
Manuel García (1775-1832) was the father of one of the best known singing families. Although he was born in Seville, he often performed in France and Italy. He was the tenor for whom Rossini wrote the coloratura-infused role of Lindoro in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Three of his children followed him into opera: baritone Manuel II; mezzo Maria, who sang under her married name of Malibran; and mezzo Pauline, often known as García-Viardot. After his career as a performer, Manuel II, who had invented the laryngoscope, became a very famous voice teacher.
Manuel actually had another family before he left Spain. After a fight with a theater official in Madrid which caused him to serve a prison term, he left the country without divorcing the wife who had borne him two children. A few years later, García set up housekeeping with singer Joaquina Sitchez, the mother of his three famous children.
In 1825, famous librettist Lorenzo da Ponte invited the Garcías to perform Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Park Theater in New York. They traveled as a family group that included not only Maria and Manuel II, who performed, but also Joaquina and four-year-old Pauline. Maria became the darling of New York society and subsequently married François-Eugène Malibran. She stayed in the U.S. while the rest of the family and their touring opera company moved on to Mexico. Eventually, they all returned to Europe—including Maria, whose marriage was not at all happy.
Pauline was home schooled while touring. Her father taught her piano and voice, and she eventually made her professional debut as a pianist, performing with her sister’s second husband, violinist Charles de Bériot. Pauline later married Louis Viardot, the director of the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris. After her singing career, she went into teaching and had a famous salon in Paris.
Mieczislaw (de Reszke) Rodzina
The mother of Jean, Edouard, and Joséphine de Reszke was an amateur singer, but she bore three children who became professional opera singers. Jean (born Jan Mieczislaw) was the tenor for whom Jules Massenet wrote Le Cid. A fine bass, Edouard (born Edward Mieczislaw) was Verdi’s choice for the King in the Paris Aida of 1876. Joséphine (born Jozefina Mieczislaw), a soprano, sang at the Paris Opera for several years and declined an invitation to the United States. A proper Victorian, she ended her career at its peak with her marriage to Baron Leopold de Kronenberg.
La Famiglia Giannini
Tenor Ferruccio Giannini (1868-1948) sang opera in Italy before immigrating to the United States in 1885. Settling in Philadelphia, he ran a small opera company where members of his family often helped him make music. His wife Antonietta played violin, while sons Vittorio and Francis played the piano and cello. Vittorio went on to become a composer. Daughters Eufemia and Dusolina sang from childhood on.
Beginning with her concert debut in 1923, Dusolina went on to a major international career as a dramatic soprano. She appeared at the Metropolitan Opera from 1935 to 1942. Eufemia Giannini-Gregory was a respected voice teacher with students such as lyric baritone Frank Guarrera and soprano Anna Moffo.
A Varnay Család
The daughter of coloratura soprano Maria Javor and spinto tenor Alexander Varnay, (Ibolyka) Astrid (Maria) Varnay (1918-2006), was born in Sweden. Her parents had moved from Hungary to Scandinavia, where they founded and administered an opera company. Later, they moved to Argentina and then to the United States where, unfortunately, Alexander died. Astrid first studied to be a pianist but switched to voice at the age of 18. She studied singing with her mother, and by the age of 22 she knew much of the dramatic soprano repertoire. In 1941, she made her debut at the Met as Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre replacing the ailing Lotte Lehmann.
Die Familie Windgassen
Heldentenor Fritz Windgassen (1883-1963) married Vali von der Osten, the sister of famous soprano Eva von der Osten. Their son Wolfgang followed in his father’s footsteps singing the great Wagnerian tenor roles. Fritz taught not only his son but also the bass Gottlob Frik. Both the elder Windgassens worked at the Stuttgart Opera and Wolfgang succeeded his father as a leading tenor there. He sang the title role in Parsifal at the reopening of the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth in 1951 and continued to appear there until 1970.
Мать Квартин и Дочь Лир
Nina Quartin (1897-1994) was a Russian-born soprano who sang with European opera companies before moving to New York. Her daughter Evelyn Lear was born Evelyn Shulman in Brooklyn, New York, and studied at the Juilliard School where she met her husband, the late baritone Thomas Stewart. The couple won Fulbright scholarships and continued their training in Berlin. Lear was a pupil of Maria Ivogün, the teacher of Rita Streich and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Between 1959 and 1992, Lear appeared in more than 40 roles at leading opera houses around the world. She is one of the few singers who have portrayed all three major female roles in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.
Die Familie Fassbaender
Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender (1897-1978) sang at Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Berlin before World War II. He was a regular at the Glyndebourne Festival and also sang at Salzburg. After the war, he worked in Vienna and German cities. His daughter is the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender.
Die Familie Ludwig
Anton Ludwig, a tenor and opera administrator, married mezzo-soprano Eugènie Besalla, who often sang with the opera company at Aachen. Their daughter Christa, born in 1928 in Berlin, was to become one of the most famous opera and lieder singers of the late twentieth century. In 1959, she made her United States debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. She went on to sing Cherubino in that composer’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Met the same year. She sang there until 1993.
La Familia Domingo
Spanish baritone and violinist Plácido Francisco Domingo Ferrer (1907-1987) and his wife, Basque soprano Pepita Embil Echaníz (1918-1994), were famous for their performances in Zarzuela, a form of Spanish operetta. In 1946, they moved to Mexico with their son and daughter.
Some years later, their son, Plácido Domingo (born José Plácido Domingo Embil), made his professional debut, appearing with his mother at a concert in Mérida, Yucatán. His first wife, Ana María Guerra Cué, was a pianist. His second and current wife—Marta Ornelas, a lyric soprano once voted “Mexican Singer of the Year”—gave up her promising career to devote time to her family. Although he started as a baritone, the younger Domingo eventually became the superstar tenor, conductor, and administrator who currently heads both the Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera.
Die Familie Edelmann
Otto Edelmann (1917-2003) was a bass-baritone who sang at the Vienna State Opera for 30 years and at the Metropolitan Opera for more than two decades. He was best known for his interpretations of roles in the operas of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner. He and his wife, Ilse-Marie Straub, had two sons and a daughter. Both sons, Peter and Paul Armin, studied with their father and are currently enjoying international careers as baritones. A few years ago, the two appeared in Die Fledermaus in San Diego along with the Canadian soprano now married to Paul Armin, Siphiwe McKenzie Edelmann.
La Madre Colon y la Hija Martínez
The daughter of soprano Evangelina Colón—who has sung with opera companies in Latin America, the United States, and Europe—Ana María Martínez was the winner of the 1995 Operalia Zarzuela Prize. In 1997, she made her debut at the Washington National Opera. Since then, she has been appearing in leading roles at major opera companies around the world.
Family ties within the business of opera have a long history. Singers married singers and had children that then follow in their footsteps. In many ways, for both genetics and environment, it makes sense and is likely to continue.
