Antoinette Sterling

Antoinette Sterling (January 23, 1841January 10, 1904) was an American contralto who had a career singing sentimental ballads in Britain and the Empire.

Early life

Sterling was born in Sterlingville, New York, on January 23, 1841. Her father, James Sterling, owned large blast furnaces, and she claimed descent from William Bradford. In childhood, she developed anti-British prejudices. Her young patriotic sympathies were so stirred by the story of the destruction of tea cargoes in Boston harbour that she resolved never to drink tea, and kept the resolution all her life.  She took a few singing lessons at the age of eleven from Signor Abella in New York. In 1857, when she was sixteen, her father died, and she went to the state of Mississippi as a teacher, and after some time, she gave singing lessons.

When the civil war broke out, she and another northern girl fled by night during the summer of 1862, guided north by African Americans. Afterwards, she became a church singer at Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn. In 1868, she came to Europe for further training; she sang at Darlington in Handel's ''Messiah'' on December 17, and took lessons with W. H. Cummings in London before proceeding to Germany.

She studied with Pauline Viardot-Garcia and with Manuel Garcia in London. In 1871, she returned to America and became a concert singer.

Professional career in England and British Empire

She came back to England at the beginning of 1873. She made her debut in the Covent Garden Promenade Concerts, and became known for singing ballads and Scotch songs.

Her first engagement in London was at the promenade concert on November 6, 1873; she insisted on singing the "Slumber Song" from Bach's ''Christmas Oratorio'' and some classical Lieder. Her success at the Crystal Palace, the Albert Hall, Exeter Hall, and St. James's Hall quickly followed.

In February 1874, she sang in Mendelssohn's ''Elijah'' on two consecutive nights at Exeter Hall and Royal Albert Hall. Her repertoire was entirely oratorio music or German Lieder. Dissenting voices were not lacking; "her style is lacking in sensibility and refinement. The excellence of voice is not all that is required in the art of vocalisation' (Athenum, 14 March). She was engaged for the Three Choirs Festival at Hereford.

On Easter Sunday 1875, she was married at the Savoy Chapel to John MacKinlay, a Scottish American; they settled in Stanhope Place, London.

Engagements for high-class concerts gradually ceased, but she still sang in oratorio, and her taste remained faithful to the German school, including Wagner. In 1877, she found her vocation. Arthur Sullivan wrote "The Lost Chord" expressly for her, and it attained popularity. She was drawn more and more to simple sentimental ballads, especially those with semi-religious or moralising words. She invested "Caller Herrin'' with singular significance. In her later years, she favoured Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" in Behrend's setting.

She refused to wear a low-necked dress, and got permission to dispense with one at a command performance before Queen Victoria. She never wore a corset. She became a believer in Christian Science after belonging to various sects.

Australia and New Zealand

In 1893, she embarked on an Australasian tour for T. P. Hudson. Her tour of Australia included Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. Her husband, having grown ill, remained behind in Adelaide while she toured the rest of Australia. She sang seven times in the Centennial Hall in Sydney to crowds totalling more than 25,000. She visited schools, hospitals, and social reform associations there before travelling on to New Zealand. When she arrived in Auckland from Sydney, she was greeted by Annie Jane Schnackenberg, national president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union of New Zealand. At their meeting at the Grand Hotel, Schnackenberg presented Sterling with a bouquet of white camellias (a suffragist symbol) and maiden hair fern "as a co-worker in the organisation." It was clear from a news article expounding on Sterling's career that her work was greatly admired: "Antoinette Sterling comes to show us how a perfect voice, perfectly educated, and controlled by a perceptive, devotional, and feeling mind, can lead us to heights and breadths and lengths and depths of musical delight such as we have not before understood." On July 9, 1893, while on her way to a concert in Dunedin, she received notice of her husband's death in Australia. She continued on and performed at Garrison Hall before returning to Australia.

End of career and death

In 1895 she revisited America, but soon returned to London.

In the winter of 1902–3 her farewell tour was announced. Her last appearance was at East Ham on October 15, 1903, and the last song she sang was 'Crossing the Bar.' She died at her residence in Hampstead on January 10, 1904, and was cremated at Golder's Green where she was interred.

Family

She was survived by a son and a daughter, both popular vocalists at the time. After her death, her son, Malcolm Sterling Mackinlay (1876–1952) wrote about her life in ''Antoinette Sterling and Other Celebrities'' (1906 Hutchinson). Her son's daughter was the romance novelist Leila Antoinette Sterling Mackinlay, who was named in her honour.

References

Attribution

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sterling, Antoinette
1841 births
1904 deaths
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
19th-century American women singers