The explosion in popular culture that took place in 1920s Britain gave a huge boost to the concept of celebrity as we know it today. This was a decade that saw the rise of the sporting personality, as the nation went crazy for cricket, tennis and golf and the racecourse became the place for the well-to-do to show off the latest fashions.
Dance band leaders such as Jack Hylton, known as the ‘British King of Jazz’, grabbed the headlines and, accordingly, watched their bank balances swell. Elsewhere, ballet was going through a particular vogue, with audiences flocking to see the dying swan, Anna Pavlova. Noël Coward and Ivor Novello were the darlings of the West End, adored both as writers and as actors.
And then of course there were the stars of the silent screen, the new idols from across the Atlantic: Rudolph Valentino, Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin and ‘it girl’ Clara Bow. So where did this leave the reigning celebrities of old – the prima donnas of opera who had been fêted in London throughout the Victorian era and up to the First World War?
Previously, opera singers had revelled in high glamour
With their noses rather out of joint, is the short answer. Nellie Melba, operatic doyenne of the Edwardian years, was incensed at having to share the limelight at a 1920s society luncheon with Suzanne Lenglen, the first female tennis celebrity, known for her flamboyance and daring short skirts. During the 19th century, second or even equal billing to someone who hit a ball for a living would have been unthinkable.
A leading prima donna could earn double the salary of an ambassador
Opera singers had revelled in high glamour, marrying aristocrats, wearing fabulous wardrobes, being given priceless jewellery, having it stolen, and mixing with royalty. Some even lived in castles, like Adelina Patti who owned the Craig-Y-Nos estate in Powys, Wales. According to an 1888 book about singers, a leading prima donna could earn double the salary of an ambassador and vastly more than a professor or a judge.
The 1920s prima donnas weren’t going down without a fight
Clearly this high social status could no longer be taken for granted in the new entertainment world of the interwar era. In 1922, the journalist Francesco Berger reported in The Monthly Musical Record that it had become the fashion in Britain among ‘superior’ people to sneer at the prima donna and to ‘endeavour to deprive her of the éclat which, for centuries, she has enjoyed’.
But the prima donnas of the 1920s weren’t going down without a fight, and many adopted the new publicity mechanisms of the era in order to take on the stars of popular culture on their own terms. Many of these strategies are still being used by the singers we know and love today.
Readers wanted to know about stars’ childhoods, fashion tastes and eating habits
The 1920s were boom years for popular journalism. Since the turn of the century, the human interest story – aimed in particular at female readers – had become a distinctive feature of newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Daily Express, and the model was widely adopted in other publications. Private lives were offered up for public consumption. Readers wanted to know about stars’ childhoods, marital status, fashion tastes, dietary preferences and what they liked to do in their spare time.
Despite their relative decline in social status, prima donnas still attracted attention in publications from Tatler to The Daily Mirror. When the Italian-American star Amelita Galli-Curci came to Britain for a much- publicised concert tour in 1924, the papers went into a frenzy. Sir Richard Terry, Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, was scathing, writing: ‘Then we had personal anecdotes about the “Queen of Song”, all creating the impression that though a “Queen”, she was nevertheless enchantingly human.
Stolen jewels, romantic escapades: divas were great copy
'Then the charming domestic touches concerning her home life, and her devotion to her linen cupboard. Then the thrilling details of her simple but nourishing diet’. As The Musical Times pointed out, newspapers were left with a problem when they hyped singers to this extent, because they were forced to send critics ‘bound and gagged’ when they actually had to review their performance.
Newspapers and magazines wanted stories that played into certain stereotypical expectations and singers’ agents were happy to oblige. As Berger reported in his 1922 article, ‘Some of the romantic adventures attributed to the prima donna are nothing more than “tricks of the trade”’.
Best of all was the rags-to-riches story
Elsewhere, it was always good to mention one’s charitable works. Having numerous husbands added a risqué note to a singer’s biography, while the old chestnut about having jewels or furs stolen played into the popular taste for true crime. But best of all was the rags-to-riches story, which has proved utterly timeless. Think of the papers decades on, gleefully reporting that soprano Anna Netrebko had been discovered when mopping floors at the Mariinsky Theatre.
The diva who decided to tell her own story
In her 1921 book My Life of Song, the Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini objected to words being put in her mouth by lazy journalists. (She was no fan of the press since a newspaper had subtitled her photo ‘plump and proud of it’.) The medium of autobiography gave her – or at least her ghost- writer – control of her own narrative, but this too was clearly an exercise in hype.
Tetrazzini's story was advertised thus: ‘Madame Tetrazzini has had innumerable adventures in all parts of the globe, and here she tells in racy language, full of quiet humour, the fascinating story of her amazing career as an international prima donna’. The book was widely panned.
Divas behaving badly
Obviously the tabloids were most interested in opera singers when there was some juicy gossip to be reported. All publicity was good publicity – wasn’t it? – and some singers knew that the way to attract maximum attention was to play up to the old cliché about divas behaving badly.
The means of doing this could vary. A notorious ‘spitting incident’ in Vienna gained Maria Jeritza a lot of column inches in the British press. She had been bad-mouthing the contralto Maria Olszewska so badly from the wings during Wagner’s opera Die Walküre that the latter spat at her from the stage, inadvertently hitting another member of the cast.
Tetrazzini’s brief marriage to a man some 21 years younger raised eyebrows in 1929. And there are numerous anecdotes about female singers appearing on stage drunk, although admittedly these rather desperate cases were rarely singers of the premier league.
Frieda Hempel chartered a special plane just so her dog could visit the vet
Despite inhabiting what was perceived to be a more democratic age, some singers still played on their associations with royalty and high society and were proud to be seen living a luxurious – even a profligate – lifestyle. Jeritza insisted on being addressed as Baroness Popper (the title she had acquired upon marriage) and wrote in her autobiography about eating iced cakes with Austrian archduchesses. Frieda Hempel was said in 1929 to have chartered a special plane to London just so her dog could visit the vet.
Big earners, big spenders
The high fees some singers commanded inevitably attracted press attention. A story was widely reported about Tetrazzini getting into trouble over an unpaid tax bill. She responded by paying the £1,500 due in £5 notes and presenting the tax man with a slice of home-made Christmas pudding.
Some commentators took a dim view of such insensitive flaunting of her wealth at a time of high unemployment. However, as the critic ‘Figaro’ observed in Musical Opinion, many members of the public liked the fact that famous singers were highly paid: it gave them an allure similar to that of the dukes and duchesses in popular novels.
Famous opera singers did their best to compete with the stars of the new types of popular culture that were emerging. High-profile singers were routinely asked in interviews about their attitudes towards appearing in films, as American opera stars such as Geraldine Farrar already had.
In 1923, the 50-something, rather portly Tetrazzini confessed her somewhat far-fetched ambition to appear in one of William S Hart’s cowboy movies. Film started to influence how singers performed on stage: Jeritza was accused by the critic Ernest Newman of adopting melodramatic mannerisms like a ‘bad film actress’.
The birth of the celebrity concert
The worlds of classical and popular music were somewhat fluid during the 1920s. Singers embarked on extensive UK tours giving celebrity concerts, which anticipated today’s crossover genre. They typically performed pot-pourri concerts: bel canto arias by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, mixed in with Victorian ballads and popular songs.
On her 1924 tour, Galli-Curci was quoted as saying ‘I want to sing for the people, and their songs are my songs. That is why I love to leave the songs of opera sometimes and sing the dear old heart songs like Annie Laurie, Home, Sweet Home and Swanee River’. Some singers even abandoned the operatic stage altogether to perform lighter repertory. Marie Louise Edvina, for instance, who had been a regular principal at Covent Garden in the 1910s, could be seen as the lead in the musical comedy Hearts and Diamonds at the Strand Theatre in 1926.
Like other celebrities past and present, singers styled themselves as lifestyle gurus, dispensing fashion and beauty advice. Jeritza was considered a great beauty of the day and in 1924 The Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press reported that the singer’s top hair tip was to go out hatless in fine weather.
Melba sneered at audience members for wearing tweed coats instead of dinner jackets
Meanwhile, the American soprano Rosa Ponselle was criticised in 1929 by the serious music press for turning Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at Covent Garden into a fashion parade, changing her dress five times during an opera whose action spans less than 24 hours. Melba, however, was behind the times, sneering at audience members for wearing tweed coats instead of dinner jackets at Covent Garden.
Opera singers and the advertising industry
Opera singers had long been associated with luxury goods, but by the 1920s were being approached to advertise voice pastilles, cold cures, face cream and cigarettes. Tetrazzini boasted that if she had accepted every proposition offered, she would have featured in most of the advertisements of the day. But going down this route was not necessarily to be advised. By 1931, Ernest Newman was writing ‘The modern prima donna, for commercial reasons, has come down into the crowd; and too close contact with the crowd has meant the loss of a good deal of the crowd’s respect for her’.
By the end of the 1920s most commentators were in agreement that star singers were still respected, but they were no longer worshipped, and the term ‘diva’ had become a bit of a joke. Despite the prima donnas’ efforts to stage a fight- back, their social status was undoubtedly on the wane and they had lost some of their former mystique.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t overstate the case. Over the near-century that has followed since, celebrated opera singers have continued to be household names, to be hired to advertise luxury goods and to dabble in crossover. And although it would seem rude to name names, a very small few are still not averse to deploying the old-fashioned ‘tricks of the trade’.
Spitting incidents, however, are mercifully rare.
1920s opera divas: a beginner's guide
Nellie Melba (1861–1931) launched her international career in 1887, specialising in Italian and French repertory. She considered Covent Garden her spiritual home and became a noted Mimì (La bohème), singing the role into her sixties.
Italian coloratura soprano Amelita Galli-Curci (1882–1963) was discovered as Gilda (Rigoletto) in Chicago in 1916. One of the biggest recording stars of the 1920s, she sang in Britain only in concerts.
Luisa Tetrazzini (1871–1940) debuted in her native Florence in 1890, and became a star at Covent Garden in the 1900s. Like Galli-Curci, her repertoire focused on Verdi, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini and Bizet.
Czech soprano Maria Jeritza (1887–1982) began her career in Vienna, later becoming a star at the Met and visiting London in the mid 1920s. Particularly noted as a Straussian, she also sang Puccini, Wagner, Korngold and Janáček.
American Rosa Ponselle (1897–1981) originally sang in vaudeville and cinemas. She sang her first ever operatic performance at the Met in 1918 and was a favourite there for almost two decades. Bellini's Norma was her signature role.
Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain by Dr Alexandra Wilson is published by Oxford University Press
