Lillian Nordica
American Soprano
1857 – 1914 A.D.

Lillian Nordica, an American soprano, born at Farmington, Maine; her real name being Lillian Norton.

After studying in Boston where she appeared as a church soloist in 1876 she continued her studies in Italy, and made her operatic début as Brescia in La Traviata. At Paris in 1881 she won a great triumph, and from 1887 to 1893 she was one of the principal stars of the Covent Garden season in London.

In her later years she appeared in New York at the Manhattan and the Metropolitan, and was greatly admired. In 1914 while on a concert tour around the world, she died at Batavia, Java.

Lillian Nordica had a magnificent voice and a pleasing presence that won her immediate success. Unsurpassed in coloratura parts, she abandoned them in the latter part of her career and devoted her genius to the great Wagner rôles in which she was supremely effective.

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Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.