Wickham Florence

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Wickham Florence

Wickham, Florence, American contralto and composer; b. Beaver, Pa., 1880; d. N.Y., Oct. 20,1962. She studied in Philadelphia and then was a pupil of Franz Emerich in Berlin; she also studied with Mathilde Mallinger. In 1902 Wickham made her operatic debut as Fides in Wiesbaden. After appearances in Schwerin and Munich, she sang the role of Kundry in Parsifal in Henry W. Savage’s touring opera troupe in America (1904-05). In 1908 she appeared in Wagnerian roles at London’s Covent Garden. On Nov. 17,1909, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Verdi’s Emilia. She remained on its roster until 1912, and then sang in concerts and devoted herself to composition. She wrote the operettas Rosalynd (1938) and The Legend of Hex Mountain (1957).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire