My Method Must Never Die
This post originally appeared on October 31, 2014. It is being reposted on October 31, 2024, with additional material.
One of the most curious books I have encountered in my research is Baroness Katharine von Klenner’s The Greater Revelation: Messages from the Unseen World, received through automatic writing in various languages, including Chinese and Japanese, in chirography, and with the verified signature of those sending the messages.
Published in 1925 during the peak years of the Spiritualist Movement in America, the author was a rather well-known—if now forgotten—student of Desireé Artôt and Pauline Viardot-García, the sister of Manuel García.
Though Klenner's involvement in spiritualism strikes us as odd and peculiar today, many singers of her time, including Antoinette Sterling, David Bispham, and Emma Thursby, shared her interest. And while I cannot say I have ever seen a ghost, Klenner makes it quite clear that many spoke to her "triumvirate," their messages a fitting tribute on All Hallow's Eve.
Find Klenner’s Spiritualist masterwork, The Greater Revelation, on Google Books and HathiTrust.
Katharine Evans von Klenner (1958-1949)
Katharine Evans von Klenner was a baroness, having married Ferdinand Auguste Maria von Klenner (his name has also been recorded as "Rudolph"), an Austrian diplomat and linguist whose family lived in Italy. His death before the First World War left the musical daughter of the Garcias childless and alone and may have been the catalyst for her interest in otherworldly concerns. Whatever the reason, The Greater Revelation is an unusual book, replete with messages from famous personages, including those from Manuel García and Richard Wagner.
A characteristic message is one recieved from the world-renowned teacher and inventor of the laryngoscope, the instrument which has proven of untold benefit to all physicans through the knowledge divuled by its use of the voal organs and their condition. On his one hundreth birthday hundreds of physicians, musicians and even royalty united in payin homage to one who had beenb such a great benefactor to humanity through this invention, and its applicaton for the alleviation of all vocal aiments. His message dated Feb. 29, 1921 reads: — “I have lived so many years in London that I prefer to speak to you in English though I have many other tongues. Spread my methods throughout the world, you my pupil who have been chosen by me. Sing as long as you can speak, is my motto. I want to come for many reasons. Do you know that I could sing when I had reached the age of a centenarian? My method must never die. I will come again. Manuel Garcia.”
— Baroness Katharine Evans von Klenner, The Greater Revelation (1924), p 61-62.
Klenner was born in Rochester, New York, in 1858 to a well-to-do Moravian family and studied with Pauline Viardot-García in Paris before she was 20, her voice a dramatic soprano. By 1883, Klenner was an authorized exponent of the García Method in New York City, where she taught at the National Conservatory for five years before marrying and opening a private studio. A founding member of The National Association of Teachers of Singing in 1906 and a participant in numerous Women’s clubs, Klenner was an ardent supporter of national standards for voice teachers at the state and national levels. When these goals were not realized, Klenner turned her efforts towards education and founded the National Opera Club of America, which held its meetings at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue and 50th Street for many years.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1924, p 5.
During her long life, Klenner made the most of the social media of her time—the newspaper—appearing in papers coast to coast and intending to be a force for the furtherance of opera and vocal education. The article below provides some of her staunch personality.
Newspapers Are Simply Horrid
Musical Missionary Deplores Tendency of the Press
What They Ask Her
San Francisco, Cal. July 16.— Madame Katharine Evans von Klenner, president of the New York Women’s Press Club and one of the most eiminent vocal teachers America has ever produced, desires to know what is the matter with the newspapers.
“It is not your western papers I complain of,” she said. “They seem to have purpose, to wish to publish something true and worth while. But our New York papers—”
The madam threw up her hands.
“They are awful; and I have forbidden them to mention my name. Why, the reporters never ask me anything but some foolishness about whether I have quarreled with any or my friends or whether some one has perhaps been rude to me. It is dreadful and I wonder the public does not rebel.
“I am founder of theWomen’s Philharmonic Society of New York and I am staying in America to do missionary work in a musical way. You know my husband—yes, he’s living and a very nice man, thank you.” This with a twinkle in her eye.
“As I was saying, my husband is the son of Field Marshall von Klenner, of Austria; and we could live beautifully and most happily in Europe. But I feel that Americans need some one to help them learn how to sing.
“Certainly you would think so if you lived in New York. Why the papers here actually send the yacht critics to report my concerts. One of their critics has retired from the newspaper business of late and opened a vocal class. He has looked down the throats of so many singers he thinks he ought to know just how they sing. He ought, but he doesn’t.
“Man is the only creature that does not sing naturally. Birds sing in the morning, frogs at night. All creatures do not of course sing; but man is the only one that needs to be taught to use the voice nature gave him.”
Madame von Klenner was awarded the diploma for vocal instruction at the Paris Exposition in 1900 by a committee of international judges. The award was unique in that it was the first time in history that such an aware was even made.
— “Newspapers Are Simply Horrid,” The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Tuesday, July 16, 1912, p.2.
Klenner remained a potent force in New York City's musical life until she died in 1947. She taught at Chautauqua every summer and wore a broach containing the letters "P.V.” given to her by Pauline Viardot-García. In the article below, Klenner tells us about her beginnings as a voice teacher. It reads as many such articles do: origin stories as PR for students.
When one’s whole life has been filled with dreams of success in grand opera and visions of entranced audiences have served as a constant spur to further effort one’s goal, a suggestion that one should put aside those dreams and become a vocal teacher is not likely be received with great enthusiasm. Of course, if one has passed one’s youth and wants to have a steady occupation of old age, it is a dfferent matter; but the possessor of youth, charm and great personal magnetism—why should she devote them all to the drudgery of teaching?
This is practically the argument which Miss Katharine Evans, of Rochester, N. Y., put to Mme. Viardot-Garcia in the Conservatory of Music at Paris one day many years ago.
“You have a glorious voice, I know,” soothed Viardot-Garcia, “and must have a great future. It is assured. But there are many others who have great voices, and with them you must compete. However, you are a born teacher, and born teachers are very few and far between. Therefore, my advice to you is to perfect yourself as a teacher, go back to America and proceed at once to conquer. Sing all you want to. It is not necessary for you to stop singing, but after you have reached the age of fifty or sixty years, your public career will be finished, and you have not built up your school by that time then your section of usefulness will be over.
It took this sugar-coated pill some time to make a serious impression upon the ambitious young Rochester girl. The critics on the Vienna Fremden-Blatter, the Berlin Tageblatt and the Paris Figaro had all paid great and frequent tribute to her voice and acting in different operas and the kaiser himself had complimented her warmly. It was very distasteful advice that Viardo-Garcia offered this young American girl.
In Berlin Capt. von Klenner, of the Royal Hussars, and son of a field marshal. met and fell in love with the young singer. She married him with the understanding that she should be free to continue her career.
“Although at first the idea of teaching was abhorrent to me,” said Mme. von Klenner, “gradually I realized that Viardot-Garcia was right, and that there were much greater possibilities for me in this branch of my profession than in concert work. So I told her that I would go back to America as a teacher.
“About that time the National Conservatory of Music of America was in search of a teacher to take the place of a famous artist, [1] and Mme. Viardot-Garcia recommended me for the position. You cannot imagine the surprise of Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, president of the conservatory, when she saw a young woman—as I was then—come into the room as the successor of the great man who had gone. However, although she was afraid that my youth would be a drawback, I was already contracted with her for five years and so she had to make the most of the bargain. She tells me she has never regretted it.
“I had many revolutionary ideas, as they seemed then, about teaching singing, and so, when my contract was up, I went into business for myself. It wasn’t long before I had a large clientele, and in recognition of my work in America I was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris Exposition in 1900. It was a unique honor, as I am the only woman who has ever been given distinction.
“There are now so many superior vocal teachers in America that, except for ‘atmosphere,’ it is unnecessary for students to go abroad to study. But many although there are, there are not enough good teachers. Americans are too libale to be convinced by their eyes, leaving their natural shrewdness out of the consideration. An Italian barber or cook, with little voice and plenty of assurance, rents a studio and soon foolish young men and women flock to him in dozens. It sounds well to say, ‘I am studying with Signor So-and-So.’ They do not realize that if they are lucky enough to get off without having their voices ruined, they may regard it as a special providence.
“I believe in women teachers for women’s voices, and I do not take any male vocal students unless such men want to study in order only to become teachers. Of the latter I have quite a number. Teaching singing is very hard work, of course, but is intensely interesting, and the results are gratifying. you are likely to live your own success many times over in the success which your pupils achieve.
“A thorough education and a perfect knowledge of French, German and Italian are absolutely necessary for a singing teacher. The preparation for her work must be solid, and for this goal she must be willing to undertake several years of hard ambitious study. She must always be up with the time, and must the able to investigate every new method. She will learn that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the ‘new method’ is a fraud, but she must satisfy herself and be able to convince others. I go abroad every year, and sometimes oftener. In the summer I have a summer school for teachers at Chautaugua which I enjoy very much.
“Let the young woman who would be a singing teacher get to work, and if she can deliver the goods there is a satisfactory future for her.”
— “Women Who have Won Out in Business,” The Washington Herald, Sunday, June 14, 1914.
The famous teacher was the Belgian baritone Jacques Bouhy, who created the role of Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. Bouhy taught Oscar Saenger, who has appeared on these pages and had many pupils appear at the Metropolitan Opera along with Anna Eugénie Schoen-René.
