Mary Garden

Recording Artist and Willa Cather Prototype

 

By Doug Boilesen, 2020

Mary Garden has been identified by scholars (1) as a prototype used by Cather in her opera related stories Coming, Aphrodite! as the prototype for Eden Bower and Scandal, as one of the prototypes for Kitty Ayshire.

Besides starring on the opera stage Mary Garden made phonograph records and was featured in advertisements which added her celebrity status, artistic reputation, and the prestige of opera to the promotion of the early phonograph.

This gallery provides examples focused on Mary Garden and her popular culture role as seen in phonograph advertisements and other ephemera.

 

Mary Garden as Thais, photograph by Reutingler, Paris, postcard c. 1901.

 

Mary Garden’s Scottish Records, Pathe Record Catalog, 1904 (Courtesy British Library).

Mary Garden made six cylinder records of Scottish songs for Pathe in 1903, four records for G&T in 1904 and 3 Edison records in 1905 .

 

Mary Garden endorses Knabe Piano, Century Magazine, 1910

 

The Talking Machine World, April 1911

 

Life, 1911

 

Columbia Phonograph Co., 1911

 

The Talking Machine World, December 15, 1911

Questionable it this was an authorized advertisement using Mary Garden (front right) but does show her celebrity status in this ad that includes Caruso

 

"Mary Garden singing wiith Signor Tibaldi, violinist, in the natural amphitheatre of Red Rocks, Morrison Park, near Denver, May 11, 1911. Said Garden: " Never in any opera house the world over have I found more perfect acoustic properties."

(Photo Courtesy Denver Public Library Digital Collections)

 

 

Garden, Nordica, and Fremstad

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1911.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, The Talking Machine World, March 15, 1911

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1911.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1913 (PM-2075).

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, The Saturday Evening Post 1911.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1911.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1912.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1912.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, 1912.

 

The Talking Machine World, Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, July 1913.

 

Nordica, Fremstad and Mary Garden, Garden Magazine, August 1913.

 

Fremstad and Mary Garden, The Theatre Magazine, September 1914.

 

 

 

Mary Garden and Olive Fremstad

Announcement in the February 1911 trade magazine The Talking Machine World that Columbia has just added Nordica and Fremstad to their list of exclusive Columbia artists.

 

Mary Garden stopped Grand Opera to make this California song famous.

Sheet Music, 1913 (Courtesy New York Public Library)

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Columbia Records featuring Mary Garden and Olive Fremstad, 1916. Outing 69, October 1916.

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Columbia Records featuring Mary Garden and Olive Fremstad, 1916. Hearst’s, June 1916.

 

 

Columbia Records featuring Mary Garden and Alice Nielsen; Olive Fremstad listed in ad, Country Life in America, October 1916

 

Columbia Records - You hear Fremstad, Garden..."1917

 

 

Mary Garden, Geraldine Farrar and Mme. Schumann-Heink

Farrar, Schumann-Heink, Mary Garden - 1922 sepia rotogravure

 

Other examples of Mary Garden in Popular Culture

 

1911 Mary Garden Parfum ad with same image used in a 1911 Columbia Phonograph ad.


“Professional Jealousy – What happened When A Mary Garden Record Met a Tettrazini Record on the Library Table.” ca. 1910 by Albert Leving, Courtesy Music Division, Library of Congress.

 

 

The Queen of Sheba never had a "harmonious fragance such as Mary Garden Perfume which is identified with the spirit and personality of the great soprano herself." December 1916, Life.

 

 

Cosmopolitan, April 1917.

 

Parfum Mary Garden, Postcard circa 1917.

 

The Ladies' Home Journal, December 1917.

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1918

  

1920

 

 

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The Ladies' Home Journal, December 1919.

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1920

 

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1920

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1920

 

Mary Garden for Lucky Strike, Country Life, January 1928

 

Mary Garden on Victor Radio Program, The Talking Machine World, February 1927

 

 

Coming, Aphrodite! is also a PhonoLiterature Book Selection where text from the book and additional phonograph connections are documented.

Visit the Phonographia gallery Willa Cather's Prototypes who were Recording Artists for an overview of Cather's six opera related prototypes: FARRAR, FREMSTAD, NORDICA, GARDEN, SCHUMANN-HEINK and BORI.

For biographical notes, pictures, and comments related to Mary Garden and her recordings, see Andrea’s cantabile - subito, Mary Garden created by Andrea Suhm-Binder as part of her site for collectors of Great Singers of the Past.

 

 

Phonographia