Later Years
In 1926, she first sang Silent Night (in both German and English) over the radio for Christmas. This became a Christmas tradition with US radio listeners through Christmas of 1935. She lost nearly all her assets in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and was forced to sing again even though she was 69 years old.
Her last performance at the Met was in 1931 performing Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen, aged 71. In her later years, she had a weekly radio program. In the movies of the 1930s, many a buxom opera singer/instructor/matron was modeled on her; see for instance 1937's Stage Door.
Read more about this topic: Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“I dare say I am compelled, unconsciously compelled, now to write volume after volume, as in past years I was compelled to go to sea, voyage after voyage. Leaves must follow upon each other as leagues used to follow in the days gone by, on and on to the appointed end, which, being Truth itself, is One—one for all men and for all occupations.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead—and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)