Antoinette Sterling

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

Antoinette Sterling Mackinlay
Background information
Birth nameJane Antoinette Sterling.[1]
Also known asMadame Antoinette Sterling
Born(1841-01-23)January 23, 1841
Sterlingville, Town of Philadelphia, New York, US
DiedJanuary 10, 1904(1904-01-10) (aged 53)
Hampstead, London, England
Occupation(s)Vocalist

Early life

Sterling was born in Sterlingville, New York, on 23 January 1841.[1] 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 already possessed a beautiful voice of great compass and volume, and took a few singing lessons at the age of eleven from Signor Abella in New York. In 1857, when she was sixteen her father was ruined by the reduction of the import duties in the protective tariff. He died that year, and she went to the state of Mississippi as a teacher, and after a time gave singing lessons.

When the civil war broke out, she and another northern girl she fled by night during the summer of 1862, guided north by friendly African Americans. Afterwards she became a church singer at Henry Ward Beecher's church at Brooklyn, where a special throne-like seat was erected for her. In 1868, she came to Europe for further training; she sang at Darlington in Handel's Messiah on 17 December, and elsewhere, taking lessons with W. H. Cummings in London before proceeding to Germany.[2]

There she studied with Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and with Manuel Garcia in London.[3] In 1871, she returned to America and became a prominent concert singer. Her voice had settled into a true contralto of exceptional power and richness.

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 popular for singing ballads and Scotch songs.[4]

Her first engagement in London was at the promenade concert of 6 November 1873; the programmes were then distinctly popular, with a tendency towards vulgarity; she insisted on singing the 'Slumber Song' from Bach's Christmas Oratorio and some classical Lieder. Her success and enthusiastic reception at the Crystal Palace, the Albert Hall, Exeter Hall, and St. James's Hall quickly followed. [2]

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. Dissentient voices were not lacking; 'her style is wanting in sensibility and refinement. Excellence of voice is not all that is required in the art of vocalisation' (Athenæum, 14 March). Her popularity was undeniable, and 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.[2]

Engagements for high-class concerts gradually ceased, but she still for some years 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,[5] and attained unprecedented popularity. She was drawn more and more to simple sentimental ballads, especially those with semi-religious or moralising words, which she declaimed with perfect distinctness and intense fervour. She invested 'Caller Herrin'' with singular significance. In her later years she favoured Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar' in Behrend's setting.[2]

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. After belonging to various sects, she became a believer in Christian Science.

Australia and New Zealand

In 1893, she made an Australiasian tour for T. P. Hudson.[5] Her tour of Australia included Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.[6] 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 totaling more than 25,000. She visited schools, hospitals and social reform associations there before traveling on to New Zealand.[7] When she arrived in Auckland from Sydney, she was greeted by Annie Jane Schnackenberg, national president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union New Zealand.[8] 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." Sterling replied graciously that she was glad to be welcomed by temperance leaders in New Zealand.[9] It was clear from a news article expounding on Stirling'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."[6] 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[10] before returning to Australia.[11]

Her husband died on 9 July 1893 in Adelaide, and was buried in the West Terrace Cemetery.

End of career and death

In 1895 she revisited America, but did not feel at home there, and soon returned to London.[2]

In the winter of 1902–3 her farewell tour was announced. Her last appearance was at East Ham on 15 October 1903, and the last song which she sang was 'Crossing the Bar.' She died at her residence in Hampstead on 10 January 1904, and was cremated at Golder's Green[2] where she was interred.

Family

She was survived by a son and a daughter, both popular vocalists at the time. [2] After her death, her son, Malcolm Sterling Mackinlay (1876–1952) wrote about her life in Antoinette Sterling and Other Celebrities (1906 Hutchinson). He also wrote the Manuel Garcia biography cited here. Her son's daughter was the romance novelist Leila Antoinette Sterling Mackinlay, named in her honour.

References
  1. Sterling, Albert Mack (1909). The Sterling Genealogy: Volume 2: William Sterling of Haverhill, Massachusetts. The Grafton Press. p. 931.
  2. Davey 1912.
  3. Malcolm Sterling Mackinlay. Manuel García: The Centenarian and His Times, p.134-135 and p.219 (London, 1908)
  4. The Advertiser, 'A Famous Singer Dead: Madame Antoinette Sterling', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA: 1899-1931) Vol. XLVI, No. 14,113 (1904), pp. 1–10 at p. 5.
  5. "Death of a Queen of Song". The Register (Adelaide). Vol. LXIX, no. 17, 835. South Australia. 12 January 1904. p. 5. Retrieved 18 April 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. "Madame Antoinette Sterling, The Queen of Contraltos". Poverty Bay Herald [New Zealand]. No. 6711. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 29 June 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  7. "Madame Antoinette Sterling". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 17243. 26 June 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  8. "Untitled". Auckland Star. No. 148. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 24 June 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  9. "Untitled". Auckland Star. No. 151. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 28 June 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  10. "Madam Antoinette Sterling". (Dunedin) Evening Star. No. 9181. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 10 July 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  11. "Madame Antoinette Sterling". South Australian Register (Adelaide). No. 14567. Trove. 21 July 1893. Retrieved 1 October 2021.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Davey, Henry (1912). "Sterling, Antoinette". Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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