Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale"
1820 CE
to 1887 CE
Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind (October 6, 1820 – November 2, 1887) is a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale".
One of the most highly regarded singers of the nineteenth century, she performs in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertakes an extraordinarily popular concert tour of the United States beginning in 1850.
She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
Lind becomes famous after her performance in Der Freischütz in Sweden in 1838.
Within a few years, she has suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacher Manuel García saves her voice.
She is in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, and is closely associated with Felix Mendelssohn.
After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announces her retirement from opera at the age of twenty-nine.
In 1850, Lind goes to America at the invitation of the showman P. T. Barnum.
She gives ninety-three large-scale concerts for him, then continues to tour under her own management
She earns more than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from these concerts, donating the proceeds to charities, principally the endowment of free schools in Sweden.
With her new husband, Otto Goldschmidt, she returns in 1852 to Europe, where she has three children and gives occasional concerts over the next two decades, settling in England in 1855
From 1882, for some years, she is a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music in London.
