Jane Van Etten

Jane Van Etten, sometimes credited under her married name, Jane Van Etten Andrews (born 1871), was an American composer and singer, one of the first female composers in the United States to have an opera produced by a regular opera company. This was Guido Ferranti, a one-act opera to a libretto by Elsie M. Wilbor based on the play The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde.[1] It was premiered on December 29, 1914, in Chicago by the Century Opera Company at the Auditorium Theater. Hazel Eden was Beatrice and Worthe Faulkner Guido Ferranti; the opera was conducted by Agide Jacchia.[2] The piece received the Bispham Memorial Medal Award.[1] It was said that Van Etten had not studied orchestration, harmony or counterpoint prior to the creation of the opera.[3] The opera won great critical acclaim, but appears not to have been performed again after its premiere.[4] Its music has been described as "tuneful in the Puccini mode". [1]

Van Etten was a native of St. Paul, Minnesota; the daughter of Isaac Van Etten, a prominent local lawyer and politician, she was descended from the Van Etten family of New York.[5] She studied music in New York City, Paris, and London; her debut came as Siébel in Faust at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1895.[1] Among her teachers was Mathilde Marchesi.[4] Upon her marriage in 1901 she gave up singing to concentrate on composition,[1] though she later worked as a teacher of voice in Chicago;[6] she and her husband, Alfred Burritt Andrews, lived in Evanston, Illinois.[4] Besides the opera, her compositions include songs.[4][7] Her teachers of composition included Alexander von Fielitz and Bernhard Ziehn.[4]

Van Etten's date of death is unknown. Two of her songs have been recorded.[8]

References
  1. Ken Wlaschin (2006). Encyclopedia of American Opera. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-2109-1.
  2. Margaret Ross Griffel; Adrienne Fried Block (1999). Operas in English: A Dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-25310-2.
  3. Viola Vaille (Barnes). Campbell (1914). The Musical Monitor. Mrs. David Allen Campbell, Publisher. pp. 169–.
  4. Christine Ammer (2001). Unsung: A History of Women in American Music. Amadeus. pp. 193–. ISBN 978-1-57467-061-5.
  5. "Alfred Burritt Andrews b. 26 Nov 1871 Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois d. Unknown: Stedman Family Genealogies". Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  6. Dexter Smith; Lorin Fuller Deland; Thomas Tapper; Philip Hale (1901). Musical Record and Review. O.Ditson & Company. pp. 1–.
  7. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions. Library of Congress, Copyright Office. 1945. pp. 203–.
  8. "Albany Records: Songs From The Heart". Retrieved 24 July 2016.


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