Etelka Gerster by Unknown

Etelka Gerster as Margeurite 'Faust" Gonoud

ETELKA GERSTER
(25 June 1855, Košice – 20 August 1920, Pontecchio)
Hungarian Soprano

Studied on the recommendation of the composer Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatory at the famous Mathilde Marchesi de Castrone. The composer Verdi heard her in 1875 in the house of her teacher at the presentation of an aria from his opera 'La Traviata' and recommended it to the Teatro Fenice Venice. There she began her great career in 1876, by Gilda in 'Rigoletto' as recited debut role. 1876-77 had her first successes in Marseille and Genoa. 1877 she was staying with an Italian opera company in Berlin, her sister, the soprano Bertha Krause-Gerster (* 1852? April 1885 Paris), was a member at the Kroll Opera .. She married the impresario Carlo Gardini (1833-1910),In 1877 she came to London and was at Her Majesty's Theatre as Amina in Bellini's 'La Sonnambula and was' very successful, so came in the following years to Her Majesty's near the end of her career in 1890 she was at the Covent Garden Opera . In the years 1878-87 she was mainly in North America, and indeed after 1878, she sang at the Mapleson Opera Company with which they undertook extensive concert tours through the United States. In 1878 she toured with this company at the Academy of Music in New York and had in her inaugural role of Amina in 'La Sonnambula', and then the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute . In 1889 she moved to Berlin and opened a singing school, which met with general approval, and where she taught until 1917 there. She was the teacher of Lula Mysz Gmeiner, Clara Butt and Julia Culp.. In 1918 she retired to her villa in Pontecchio near Bologna .