Known as the Swedish Nightingale, Miss Lind was small in stature, and unassuming off-stage, but she possessed an other-worldly soprano voice and was adored by millions of ordinary people all over the world.
Born into modest circumstances in Stockholm in 1820, her talent was recognised while she was still a child, and she made her debut at the Royal Swedish Opera at the age of 17. She caused a sensation in Berlin and Vienna, where the crowds were so enthusiastic that she had to be escorted by a platoon of mounted police. She attracted famous fans, such as Mendelssohn, Charlotte Bronte, and Hans Christian Andersen – who came up with her nickname and was even said to have wooed her – while her real name was given to greyhounds and racehorses, tulips and roses, bonnets, gloves and various kinds of cape.
Jenny Lind made her British debut in 1847, at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, where Queen Victoria was said to have attended every one of her performances. That autumn, she went on a tour of Britain and people in the provinces got their first sight of what would soon come to be called ‘Lindomania’. After another London season the following year there was a second tour. And it was then that Jenny came to Newcastle.
Waxwork
Beyond the rarified atmosphere of the opera houses, Europe was now in turmoil. Berlin and Vienna had both seen vicious street fighting. The French King had been overthrown. And in Britain, where Chartism was at its height, Her Majesty had forsaken Her Majesty’s Theatre and taken refuge on the Isle of Wight.
Jenny Lind’s professional affairs could scarcely have been better, however, with her fame now so great that she was able to command a fee equivalent to £1mn in today’s money for her tour. That, of course, made tickets to see her expensive. In Newcastle, where she would perform at the Theatre Royal, the best ones cost the equivalent of more than £200. But that did nothing to quell the excitement when she arrived in the country. A waxwork of her was exhibited in Leeds. Busts of her went on sale at a fancy goods shop in Oxford. And Jenny Lind brooches could be purchased from a jeweller in Edinburgh.
And while the turmoil on the Continent found an echo in her personal life – she had recently broken off her engagement to a Swedish tenor, having only announced it a few weeks before – the tour began as arranged in the first week of September 1848. She performed to packed houses in Birmingham and Liverpool, did two nights in Manchester, and then went on to Hull and York.
Bouquets
As Jenny’s Newcastle performance approached, newspapers there reminded those attending that they must do so in evening dress. Mr Parsons, a Mosley Street hairdresser, was selling Jenny Lind combs; and a lithograph of her went on sale at Andrew Reid’s printing shop on Pilgrim Street.
She finally arrived in the city on 19 September, having arranged to stay with Joseph Grote, the brother of one of her friends. Grote was the manager of the Bank of England branch in Grey Street and, in an arrangement that wasn’t unusual for the time, he lived on the premises with his wife.
On the morning of her performance, Jenny visited the Royal Victoria Asylum for the Blind, on Westgate Street, before proceeding by open carriage to the Theatre Royal. Built a decade before, during the initial development of Grainger Town, the theatre was itself located on Grey Street, just up from the Bank of England. A large crowd had assembled there by early afternoon. Nearby streets were blocked. And there were police constables surrounding the stage door, where everyone going in or out was given a hearty cheer, just in case they turned out to be Jenny herself.
She would be appearing there in La Sonnambula, a short opera by the Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini. And the part she would be taking – that of the heroine, Amina – is the one for which she is now perhaps best remembered. Despite the high prices, the Theatre Royal was full to bursting as the orchestra began to play, and Jenny received a rapturous ovation when she came on stage. There was more cheering at the interval, bouquets rained down upon her at the final curtain, and she thanked her supporters graciously before rewarding them with an encore. The press, too, was bowled over, and the night’s receipts were found to be the equivalent of almost £150,000. But there would be one somewhat less happy consequence of Jenny’s visit.
Engagement
One of her fellow guests in Joseph Grote’s rooms at the Bank of England had been his brother-in-law, Claudius Harris. He was a cavalry officer in the Indian Army, and he instantly became enamoured by her – so much so that he joined her entourage for the rest of the tour. And in January 1849 the two of them announced that they would marry. This, of course, was Jenny’s second engagement in less than a year. Like her first, however, it would be quickly brought to an end. It was Jenny herself who did the deed, ostensibly because she wasn’t willing to give up her career, as Harris had demanded she should, but also because she didn’t wish to relinquish the financial independence she had carved out for herself.
Jenny Lind did eventually get married – in 1852, to Otto Goldschmidt, who had been the accompanist on her American tour. And her fame only grew as the years went by. The appearances she made were still hugely popular, even as they became fewer and fewer. But by the time she died – in 1887, in the south-west of England – she had never repeated her one glorious, momentous visit to the North East.
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