Marie Engle
Marie Engle was an American operatic mezzo-soprano known for her performances in the late 19th century in the United States and Europe. She retired twice during her career, once in the late 1880s at the request of her then husband. In the spring of 1895, she resumed her opera career and performed at the Teatro Real in Madrid shortly before the Spanish–American War in 1898.
She retired again in the late 1890s to care for her ill father in Michigan. Critics praised her stage presence and technical expertise as a vocalist. Gianni Bettini recorded some of her work for the first phonograph cylinders of opera singers sold in a catalog. After her father's death, she left the United States for England.
Early life
Engle was born around 1860 in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in Chicago with one brother, Charles. Her father, Christian Engle, came to the United States and settled in Michigan. Christian's father was from Prussia, and his mother was the French prima donna Marie Stoll. Christian later married Augusta Merrill, a singer of Irish and English heritage. Augusta died when Marie was young, but before her death, she requested her daughter to sing for her.Her father was a successful brewer in St. Louis, and later worked as a private secretary for Albert Allison Munger, heir to the Wesley Munger grain elevator company. He also helped plan her musical education. She studied under Anna Frederika Magnusson Jewett and Adelina Murio-Celli d'Elpeux. At age 14, she performed at the Academy of Music in New York. Before her marriage, she was accompanied by her father on tour for most of her career.
Career
heard Engle perform at the Academy and took her under his management. She debuted in 1886 at the Grand [Opera House (San Francisco)|Grand Opera House] in San Francisco as Philine in Mignon by Ambroise Thomas. The following year, she appeared in the opera season at Drury Lane in London under the management of Augustus Harris, where she performed as the Queen in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma, and Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1895, appearing as Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen and Baucis in Gounod's Philémon et Baucis. Under director Maurice Grau, Engle performed in three grand opera productions in the winter of 1898 at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre: as Cherubino, Lady Harriet Durham in an Italian version of Flotow's Martha, and the Queen in Les Huguenots.
Three years later, she made a appearance at the Teatro Real, which was extensively covered in newspapers of the time; shortly after the sinking of the Maine and just before the Spanish–American War, she performed as Ophelia in Hamlet by Thomas for a critical Spanish audience. Due to the political situation, she received a cold reception from the crowd initially, with no reaction during the opening act, only silence. In the second act, the audience initially reacted with shouts of "Americana" and hissing. However, by the final act, she managed to win them over to loud cheers and approval.
In the late 1890s, the problem of acoustic cylinder duplication was solved using the pantograph, allowing phonograph cylinders to be copied and sold. Gianni Bettini recorded some of the first opera singers for commercial release at the Bettini Phonograph Laboratory in the Judge Building on Fifth Avenue, including Engle. Bettini made Engle's recordings available for wider purchase through his catalog, making her voice one of the earliest to be commercially recorded and sold to home listeners. She was listed as artist No. 21 in the 1897 and 1898 Bettini catalog, which offered a recording of her singing the Polonaise from Mignon priced at $3.50.
Personal life
Engle married her manager, Gustav Amburg, then the manager of the Bowery Theatre, in 1889. During their marriage, she was frequently occupied with preparing for performances or touring. Engle's husband was abusive towards her, making their relationship difficult. She temporarily retired from the opera for several years at his request.During this period, Engle cared for a white Angora cat named Mizzi. The cat was immortalized in the painting Kitty's Birthday by artist Nelson N. Bickford. The painting gained popularity through journalist Helen M. Winslow's book Concerning Cats and was later noted by writer Carl Van Vechten.
In 1896, Engle divorced Amburg after learning he had a second wife in Germany. She spoke about her work in several interviews, noting that it was a difficult career. "We cannot all win, to be sure", she told one reporter, "and the few who attain success well deserve it." She ended her opera career to care for her ill father in Michigan, who died in 1899. She was later said to have converted to Catholicism. In 1912, New York Times">New York City">New York Times reported that Engle was living in Brighton.
Engle died in 1953 at the age of 92 in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, England.