Louise Kirkby Lunn - Operatic Career

Operatic Career

From 1901–14, Louise Kirkby Lunn appeared regularly at the Covent Garden, and for several of those years also in the United States, especially at the Metropolitan Opera in the seasons of 1902–03, 1906–08 and 1912–14.

She was particularly successful in Wagnerian opera parts, especially as Fricka, Brangane, Ortrud and Erda, and in 1904 gave the first English-language performance of the role of Kundry (Parsifal) in America, at Boston. Her American 1902 debut, however, had been as Amneris in Aïda, a role in which she formed a long and famous partnership with the Czech dramatic soprano Emmy Destinn as Aïda. (This partnership is preserved on record, not only in a 1911-recorded 'Ebben qual nuovo fremito' from Verdi's work, but also in a 1911 'L'amo come il fulgor', from Ponchielli's La Gioconda.) Both in England and America, she was also a famous Dalila in the opera by Saint-Saëns. She sang, too, in the Covent Garden premieres of Massenet's Helene and Hérodiade, Gluck's Armide and Tchaikowsky's Eugene Onegin. Gluck's Orfeo, which she first delivered in 1905, was considered one of her best parts, and her showpiece aria, 'Che faro?', was committed to disc.