Marion Weed

Weed wrote, "My only equipments for my future career were a good, natural contralto voice, an excellent piano and an inordinate love of song."{{Cite journal|last=Weed|first=Marion|date=February 1905|title=From the Church Choir to Parsifal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gUYpAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Marion+Weed%22|journal=Hampton's Broadway Magazine|volume=XIII|issue=11|pages=66–70}} She goes on to write in Hampton's Broadway Magazine that she started with the usual musical education with a mixed ability of teachers. When she was 16, she sang in the Rochester Central Church Ladies' quartette as a contralto and for two years received "excellent" training from the organist.{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/135096946/|newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle|title=(article)|location=Rochester, New York|page=7|date=February 13, 1887|via=Newspapers.com}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}} In 1889, she auditioned for a New York Fifth Avenue church and was selected over 40 other competitors. When she was working in New York, she saw Lilli Lehmann as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde and that is when she "resolved to go abroad and study under Mme. Lehmann". She worked in New York for five years to save money for that goal.{{Cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VHpRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Marion+Weed%22|last=Lonergan|first=Elizabeth|title=The Rise of the American Prima Donna|journal=Munsey's Magazine|date=December 1908|volume=XL|number=III|page=314}} Before leaving for Germany, Weed sang "with charming effect a contralto aria from Freischütz" for the Metropolitan Opera's Grand Sunday Night Concert in 1894.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/record.jsp?dockey=0358433|title=Grand Sunday Night Concert CID:13070 Metropolitan Opera House|date=April 29, 1894|publisher=Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date=February 23, 2025}}

Marion Weed then went to Germany where she planned to be trained as a contralto for concerts by Lilli Lehmann, but Lehmann said she was a pure dramatic soprano and should prepare for the grand opera. Lehmann said, "Remain with me for three years and I will promise you a career."{{Cite web|url=https://web.operissimo.com/triboni/exec?method=com.operissimo.artist.webDisplay&id=ffcyoieagxaaaaabdhln&xsl=webDisplay&searchStr=Weed%20Marion|title=Weed, Marion|work=Operissimo|language=de|access-date=February 23, 2025}} From 1896 to 1898 she received an engagement in Cologne.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/135257065/|title=(article)|newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle|location=Rochester, New York|date=August 23, 1896|page=11|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 3, 2017}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}} She debuted in 1896 as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with "brilliant success"{{Cite journal|date=October 1, 1896|title=Reviews: Foreign Notes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-Z8gtxuC1kC&q=%22marion+weed%22|journal=The Musical Times|volume=37|issue=644|page=684}} and in 1898 she performed Freia in Rheingold at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1898 she went to the Hamburg Opera. Her performance as a Circe in August Bungert's music drama {{ill|Kirke (Bungert)|de|lt=Kirke}} deserves special mention, which undoubtedly owes a considerable part of its effect to her excellent performance (September 22, 1899).

In 1903, she came back to New York where she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera for the role of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre.{{Cite news|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times-nov-28-1903-p-6/|newspaper=The New York Times|title=(article)|date=November 28, 1903|page=6|via=NewspaperArchive|access-date=May 3, 2017}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}}{{Cite web|url=https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/record.jsp?dockey=0359960|title=Die Walküre {97} CID:32040 Metropolitan Opera House|date=November 28, 1903|publisher=Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date=February 23, 2025}} During director Heinrich Conried years at the Met, "Miss Weed and Miss Fremstad and Messrs. Caruso and Goritz became fixtures in the institution."{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/chaptersoperabe01krehgoog|title=Chapters of Opera: Being Historical and Critical Observations and Records Concerning the Lyric Drama in New York from Its Earliest Days Down to the Present Time|last=Krehbiel|first=Henry Edward|author-link=Henry Edward Krehbiel|page=[https://archive.org/details/chaptersoperabe01krehgoog/page/n437 328]|date=January 1, 1911|publisher=Henry Holt|isbn=9780883557488}} She sang Kundry in Parsifal, alternating with Milka Ternina, in America's first performances. This staging of the opera was not authorized by the Wagner family but the injunction against the production failed. Several years later, Weed was still boycotted and shunned at Bayreuth.{{Cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/06/19/120281491.pdf|newspaper=The New York Times|title=Frau Wagner's Revenge on an American Kundry; Boycotts Mme. Marion Weed and Drives Her from Baireuth. Mme. Ternina Will Return – Mr. Conrled Engages Her and Promises the Best Productions Ever Seen in New York|access-date=May 15, 2017}} On January 22, 1907, she was in the United States premiere, the special and only performance, of the controversial Salome in the role of Herodias. Further performances were banned and it was not performed again until 1934.{{cite web|title=Salome {1} CID:38600 Metropolitan Opera House|date=January 22, 1907|url=https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/record.jsp?dockey=0360532|publisher=Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date=February 23, 2025}} By 1908 she sang Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, Venus in Tannhäuser, the mother in Hansel and Gretel and Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, a total of five years from 17 operas in 70 performances.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/search.jsp?q=%22Marion%20Weed%22|title=Marion Weed – 116 performances|publisher=Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date=February 23, 2025}} While the company was on tour in 1906, they survived the San Francisco Earthquake and were some of the first ones to personally report in New York about the tragedy.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/53787715/|newspaper=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle|title=(article)|date=April 23, 1906|page=2|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 3, 2017}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}}

In 1910, she again performed in the Hamburg Opera,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/31557123/|newspaper=The Washington Post|title=(article)|date=July 10, 1910|page=67|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 4, 2017}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}} this time as Isolde. She was engaged with a five-year contract with the Staatsoper Hannover.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1gzlAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Marion+Weed%22|title=The New Music Review and Church Music Review|date=January 1, 1908|publisher=Novello, Ewer & Company}} In 1914 while living in Berlin, but visiting Hamburg, World War I broke out. In an unsealed letter to her sister in Rochester, Weed wrote about how the husband of a couple whose marriage she sang at had died at the Battle of Liège. The music school next door set up its big hall with beds for wounded. She learned basic nursing skills to be a helper to the Red Cross nurses. She wrote, "We have all read about war, but it has seemed a part of history, dim and distant, and now when one experiences the sadness and depression and horror of it, it is too real. I awake every morning with a wish that it were all a dream, and then see all about me evidence of wretchedness."{{cite news|title=Marion Weed a Hamburg Nurse|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/135271865/|access-date=May 25, 2017|via=Newspapers.com|newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle|location=Rochester, New York|date=September 4, 1914}} She also wrote about the transportation, communication and financial problems for the hundreds of stranded Americans and how she planned to travel back to Berlin.

After completing her international stage career, she returned to teach in her home town as the Dean of Women at the newly formed University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and as a Dramatic Instructor in the Opera Department.{{cite web|title=Rochester Review V59 N2—Features|url=https://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V59N2/feature2.html|website=rochester.edu}}{{cite book|publisher=Eastman School of Music|title=Score Yearbook|location=Rochester, New York|chapter=Class of 1936|page=35|date=1936|url=http://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/Eastman_School_Music_Score_Yearbook/1936/Page_35.html|access-date=May 3, 2017}}{{cite book|last=Richard|first=Lansing|title=Music in Rochester from 1817 to 1909|page=165|date=April 27, 1914|orig-date=January 5, 1909|edition=revised|hdl=1802/29849}} She taught there from 1921 to 1937.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/eastmanschoolofm00rike/eastmanschoolofm00rike_djvu.txt|title=The Eastman School of Music; its first quarter century, 1921–1946|via=Internet Archive|access-date=May 6, 2017}} One of the first graduates, Adelaide Fish Cumming (known as portraying Betty Crocker), fondly remembered her teaching stage deportment, "When it came time to learn stage falls, she demonstrated

so realistically that the class shrieked in unison and ran to help her. She just laughed – not even dignity damaged."{{Cite journal|last=Cumming|first=Adelaide Fish|date=Fall 1987|title=Letters – Learning deportment|url=https://www.lib.rochester.edu/IN/RBSCP/Databases/Attachments/Reviews/1987/50-1/1987_Fall.pdf|journal=Rochester Review|page=47}} Mu Phi Epsilon awarded the Marion Weed Scholarship Prize to students, in memory of their beloved counselor of women students.{{Cite web|url=http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2346|title=University of Rochester History: Chapter 39, The Eastman School—The Postwar YearsRBSCP|website=rbscp.lib.rochester.edu|access-date=May 6, 2017}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/137144829/|newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle|title=(article)|location=Rochester, New York|date=April 10, 1966|page=121|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=May 6, 2017}}{{title missing|date=February 2025}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Eisenberg|first=Ludwig|author-link=Ludwig Eisenberg (writer)|chapter-url=https://www.archive.org/stream/ludwigeisenberg00eiseuoft#page/1098/mode/1up|chapter=Weed, Marion|language=de|title=Großes biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Bühne im XIX. Jahrhundert|publisher=Verlag Paul List|location=Leipzig|year=1903|page=1098|via=Internet Archive|ref=none}}

• [https://www.bmlo.uni-muenchen.de/w1204 "Weed, Marion"], {{ill|Bayerisches Musiker-Lexikon Online|de}} (BMLO, in German)
• [http://www.isoldes-liebestod.net/Isolden_ohne_Liebestod/Weed_Marion.htm Marion Weed] Gallery of images
• [https://www.nytimes.com/1947/06/23/archives/miss-marion-weed.html Obituary], June 23, 1947, The New York Times, p. 22

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Category:1865 births

Category:1947 deaths

Category:American operatic sopranos

Category:19th-century American women opera singers

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Category:Vocal coaches

Category:Eastman School of Music faculty

Category:1906 San Francisco earthquake survivors

Category:20th-century American women opera singers

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Category:Singers from New York (state)

Category:Classical musicians from New York (state)