30 Facts About Estelle Liebling

Estelle Liebling was an American soprano, composer, arranger, music editor, and celebrated voice teacher and vocal coach.

Estelle Liebling sang with several important opera houses in Europe, including the Opera-Comique, the Semperoper, and the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

Estelle Liebling began her teaching career in the 1910s, not stopping until her death more than 50 years later.

Estelle Liebling mainly taught out of her private studio in New York City, with the exception of three years working on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in the 1930s.

Estelle Liebling composed, edited, and arranged music for singers, most often for coloratura sopranos, but for other voices.

In particular, her influence on the interpretation of coloratura soprano repertoire has had a lasting impact, with musicologist Sean M Parr stating that Liebling "codified many traditional coloratura cadenzas".

Two of her three brothers, James and Leonard Estelle Liebling, worked professionally as musicians.

Estelle Liebling made her professional opera debut in September 1900 at the Semperoper in Dresden as the title heroine in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Estelle Liebling performed other coloratura soprano roles at that opera house, including Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville and the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Estelle Liebling performed leading roles with the Opera-Comique and the Staatsoper Stuttgart before returning to the United States to make her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots on February 24,1902.

Estelle Liebling returned to the Met in 1903 as Musetta in Puccini's La boheme with Marcella Sembrich as Mimi, Enrico Caruso as Rodolfo, Giuseppe Campanari as Marcello, and Arturo Vigna conducting.

Estelle Liebling was heard again at the Met in 1904 as a Flower Maiden in Richard Wagner's Parsifal and as the 2nd Genie in Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Estelle Liebling became a favored soprano of John Philip Sousa after her manager, Henry Wolfsohn, managed to successfully promote her as an artist to him.

Estelle Liebling first sang with Sousa and his band in Atlantic City for matinee and evening performances on Saturday, August 9,1902, in which she performed Benjamin Godard's Chanson de Florian, Alexander Alyabyev's Solovey, and the mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Estelle Liebling traveled throughout the United States and Europe as a soprano soloist with Sousa's band from 1902 to 1905 in over sixteen hundred concerts in nine tours.

From January through July 1903 Estelle Liebling toured Europe with Sousa, performing much of the same repertoire she had performed earlier with the band.

Estelle Liebling was particularly admired for her performances of one new aria, "Charmant oiseau" from Felicien David's La Perle du Bresil which was a showpiece for both her coloratura soprano and Sousa band flutist Marshall Lufsky.

Reviews from this tour were mixed, with some reviewers highly complimentary and others commenting on Estelle Liebling's voice sounding tired and worn, or overpowered by Sousa's instrumentalists.

From January 6 through May 3,1905, Estelle Liebling toured the British Isles with Sousa and his band.

The tour commenced at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, and featured Liebling performing Isabella's aria from Ferdinand Herold's Le pre aux clercs with an added flute obbligato by Marshall Lufsky and a band arrangement by Herbert L Clarke.

In 1905 Estelle Liebling married the engineer Arthur Rembrandt Mosler, the son of painter Henry Mosler whose family owned the Mosler Safe Company.

Mosler was wealthy, and the couple resided for many years in a luxurious penthouse at 145W 55th Street in the same building where Estelle Liebling later established her private voice studio on a lower floor.

Estelle Liebling served as the music director of her own ensemble, the Liebling Singers, with whom she toured the United States.

Estelle Liebling toured as a recitalist and lecturer in addition to performing in concert literature with orchestras and working as an arranger and composer.

Estelle Liebling began teaching singing and coaching singers in the 1910s, and continued to do so for over 50 years.

Estelle Liebling mainly taught out of a private studio in New York City, with the exception of three years teaching as a member of the voice faculty at the Curtis Institute for Music from 1936 to 1938.

Estelle Liebling coached 78 leading singers while they were working at the Met in addition to a busy teaching load of her own students.

In 1963 Estelle Liebling was awarded an honorary degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Estelle Liebling's only living family at the time of her death was her grandson, Henry Arthur Mosler, and her great-granddaughter, Alisa Beth Mosler.

Estelle Liebling utilized a three vocal register understanding of the voice mechanism: chest, medium, and head.