The Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale", was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. At the height of her fame, she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued into May 1852. Barnum's advance publicity made Lind a celebrity even before she arrived in the U.S., and tickets for her first concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The tour attracted much public excitement, dubbed "Lind Mania" by the local press, and raised large sums of money for both Lind and Barnum. Lind donated her profits to her favored charities, principally the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden.
Lind's concerts featured a supporting baritone, Giovanni Belletti, and her London colleague Julius Benedict as pianist, arranger and conductor. Lind found Barnum's relentless commercial promotion of her increasingly distasteful, and she terminated her contract with him in 1851 under amicable circumstances. She continued to tour for nearly a year under her own management. Benedict returned to England in 1851, and Lind's friend Otto Goldschmidt joined the tour as her pianist and conductor. She and Goldschmidt married in February 1852, and would finish the tour together.
Background Lind was born in 1820 and enrolled at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Training Academy at age ten. In 1838, she gained fame for her performance at the Royal Swedish Opera as Agathe in Der Freischütz.Lindgren, A. "Lind-Goldschmidt, Jenny Maria" in Westrin, Th: Nordisk familjebok, Nordisk familjeboks förlags aktiebolag, 1912, Vol. 16, pp. 614–17, accessed 16 June 2011 After this, she was in great demand throughout Sweden and the rest of Europe for a decade. By 1849, when Lind was in the middle of her third triumphant London season, the American showman P. T. Barnum had become aware of her success and the large audiences she attracted. He had toured Europe in 1845 and 1846 with his first great attraction, General Tom Thumb. He had never heard Lind sing, and was by his own admission unmusical,Rogers, Francis. "Jenny Lind", The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3 (July 1946), pp. 437–448 but he knew that concert halls sold out wherever she performed. Furthermore, he was confident that her reputation for philanthropy could be turned to good use in his publicity. In October 1849, he engaged an Englishman, John Wilton, to locate Lind and make her an offer.
Lind wanted to endow free schools in Sweden, and Barnum's offer would allow her to earn a great deal of money.Miller, Philip L. "Review: P. T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind: The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale", American Music, Spring 1983, pp. 78–80 After checking Barnum's credit with a London bank, on 9 January 1850, Lind accepted his offer of $1,000 a night (plus expenses) for up to 150 concerts in the United States. She insisted on the services of Julius Benedict, a German conductor, composer and pianist with whom she had worked in England, and of the Italian baritone Giovanni Belletti as assisting artist, since solo recitals were still unknown to American audiences. Benedict's fee was $25,000 and Belletti's $12,500. All told, Barnum had committed to $187,500 (approximately $ today) to bring Lind and her musical troupe to America.
Lind's contract called for the total fee to be deposited in advance with the London banking house of Baring Brothers. Barnum had not anticipated front-end payments for Lind, since he always had paid performers as performances were completed. To raise the money, Barnum sought loans from New York bankers, who refused to make the loans based on a percentage of the Lind tour, so Barnum mortgaged all his commercial and residential properties. Still slightly short, Barnum finally persuaded a Philadelphia minister, who thought that Lind would be a good influence on American morals, to lend him the final $5,000. Barnum sent the $187,500 to London. Lind signed the contract to give 150 concerts in a year or eighteen months, with the option of withdrawing from the tour after sixty or one hundred contracts, paying Barnum $25,000 if she did so.
Few Americans had ever heard of Lind, and Barnum's first press release set the tone of the promotion. "A visit from such a woman who regards her artistic powers as a gift from Heaven and who helps the afflicted and distressed will be a blessing to America." Her biographical pamphlet and photograph proclaimed: "It is her intrinsic worth of heart and delicacy of mind that produces Jenny's vocal potency." Barnum heavily promoted her record of giving frequent benefit concerts for hospitals and orphanages. Before Lind had even left England, Barnum had made her a household name in America. In a statement to the New York Herald, Barnum spoke of the huge sums he had committed, but assured the paper, "If I knew I should not raise a farthing profit I would yet ratify the engagement, so anxious I am that the United States should be visited by a lady whose vocal powers have never been approached by any other human being, and whose character is charity, simplicity and goodness personified.""The Visit of Jenny Lind to America", The Times, 6 March 1850, p. 7
In August 1850, before Lind left England, sailing from Liverpool on the paddle steamer Atlantic, Barnum arranged for her to give two farewell concerts at the city's Philharmonic Hall. Of her arrival in Liverpool, The Observer wrote that her reception "was equal to any ever experienced by the most illustrious or royal visitor. Each day a crowd gathered round her hotel, the Britannia Adelphi, and followed the carriage wherever it went.""Jenny Lind at Liverpool", The Observer, 25 August 1850, p. 3 The first concert was a performance of Messiah conducted by Benedict, the second a mixed recital with serious and light items. She was, according to an eyewitness, "literally 'bombarded' with bouquets. She could scarcely make her way out of the orchestra, there was such a heap of flowers in all possible shapes.""Jenny Lind's Departure for America", The Illustrated London News, 24 August 1850, pp. 171–172 On the day of her embarkation she was cheered off by thousands of well-wishers on both banks of the River Mersey, and salutes were fired from the shore. A critic engaged by Barnum to cover the concert wrote of the enthusiasm of the Liverpool public and its grief at Lind's imminent departure. This review was widely circulated in English, European and American newspapers a week before Lind arrived in New York. During the voyage she and Benedict gave two concerts for the passengers and crew of the Atlantic."United States", The Manchester Guardian, 18 September 1850, p. 2 In her travelling party, with Benedict and Belletti, were her companion, Miss Alimanzioni, and her secretary, Max Hjortsberg.
Arrival in New York City The Atlantic docked in New York on 1 September 1850. The following day, The New York Herald reported on "the spectacle of some thirty or forty thousand persons congregated on all the adjacent piers. ... From all quarters, crowds ... could be seen hurrying down towards the Atlantic's dock." So great was people's desire for a glimpse of the star that several people were "severely bruised, some came off with bloody noses, and two boys, about twelve years of age, appeared to be seriously injured. Had not the rush been checked in time, many lives would have been lost."Linkon, Sherry Lee. "Reading Lind Mania: Print Culture and the Construction of Nineteenth-Century Audiences", Book History, Vol. 1 (1998), pp. 94–106 When she set foot on American soil, Lind kissed her hand to the U.S. flag and exclaimed, "There is the beautiful standard of freedom, which is worshipped by the oppressed of all nations." She further endeared herself to the welcoming crowd by stopping Barnum's coachman from clearing a path through the throng with his whip.
When she realised how much money Barnum stood to make from the tour, Lind insisted on renegotiating their contract. The new agreement, signed on 3 September 1850, gave her the original $1,000 per concert agreed to, plus the remainder of each concert's profits after Barnum's $5,500 concert management fee was paid. Her interest in increasing her earnings was, it seems, genuinely motivated by her determination to accumulate as much money as possible for her chosen charities, but some commentators were sceptical; one wrote:
To which Barnum is depicted as responding:
Such dissenting voices were in a minority. Lind's appeal in America was, as Barnum had calculated, due as much to her simple and virtuous personality and her generosity to good causes as to her singing. Barnum is quoted as saying "[I]t is a mistake to say the fame of Jenny Lind rests solely on her ability to sing. She was a woman who would have been adored if she had had the voice of a crow."
Lind's first two American performances were given as charity concerts in New York City on 11 and 13 September 1850 at Castle Garden, now better known as Castle Clinton. The seats for the first were sold at auction two days beforehand; 4,476 tickets were sold at a total price of $24,753,"United States", The Manchester Guardian, 25 September 1850, p. 2; Lind's program for the first concert states that sales would "considerably exceed $35,000". "Introduction", Castle Garden program, September 11, 1850 with the theatre "packed to its utmost capacity".Obituary, The New York Times, 3 November 1887 Hatter John Genin bought the first ticket. The program for the concert states that the orchestra accompanying Lind consisted of 60 players."Introduction" (verso page), Castle Garden program, September 11, 1850 Lind's numbers that evening were "Casta diva" from Norma; a duet with baritone, "Per piacere alla Signora", from "Il turco in Italia"; a trio for two flutes and voice, to the "echo song" "Dost thou hear?", composed for Lind by Meyerbeer, from The Camp of Silesia, sung in English, "in which she performed some astonishing vocal feats that bordered on ventriloquism", and some Swedish songs."Part II", Castle Garden program, September 11, 1850 These were regular items in her tour programs, but on this occasion they were joined by a "Greeting to America", a song with words by the local poet, Bayard Taylor, set to music by Benedict. After Lind had left the platform, to tumultuous applause, Barnum took the stage and, although she had asked him not to do so, told the audience that she was taking no fee for herself and donating her entire fee of $10,000 to twelve New York charities. A reporter commented, "The deafening shouts that followed the ... speech were absolutely indescribable – many, even among the male portion of the audience, weeping with emotion.""Jenny Lind's Progress in America", The Observer, 6 October 1850, p. 3
The blatant commercialism of Barnum's ticket auctions distressed Lind, and for the second concert and thereafter she persuaded him to make a substantial number of tickets available at two dollars for the cheapest seats and one dollar for the promenade.
Touring Under the management of Barnum, whose publicity always preceded her and whipped up enthusiasm (he had up to 26 journalists on his payroll), Lind and her company toured first in the eastern United States in her own private railroad car, with concerts in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia.Hambrick, Keith S. "P. T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind – The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale", Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 208–209 Barnum marketed various Jenny Lind-branded products, including songs, clothes, chairs and pianos.