Christina Nilsson

Christina Nilsson, Countess de Casa Miranda, also called Christine Nilsson (20 August 1843 – 22 November 1921) was a Swedish operatic dramatic coloratura soprano. Possessed of a pure and brilliant voice (B3-F6), first three then two and a half octaves trained in the bel canto technique, and noted for her graceful appearance and stage presence, she enjoyed a twenty-year career as a top-rank international singer before her 1888 retirement. the two were often compared by reviewers and audiences, and were sometimes believed to be rivals. Nilsson became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1869.

Biography Christina Nilsson was born Christina Jonasdotter in a forester's hut at Sjöabol (or Snugge) farm near Växjö, Småland, the youngest of seven children of the peasants Jonas Nilsson (1798–1871) and Stina Cajsa Månsdotter (1804–1870). As a young child she received a rudimentary education, attending the local village free school where she learned to read and write. From her earliest years, she demonstrated musical talent, both singing and in playing the violin and flute, and she was taught some music basics by Sven Grankvist, the parish organist, who unsuccessfully attempted to persuade her to go to Stockholm in search of further musical training. The family was very poor, making such training out of the question, and to make extra money the young Christina would sometimes go to the local market fairs with her parents or brother to perform. At the age of eleven, she was described in the Stockholm newspaper Fäderneslandet. Tornérhjelm became her patron, enabling her to take vocal training with Mlle Adelaide Valerius, Baronne de Leuhusen in Halmstad between 1857 and 1858. The Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, who lived in Gothenburg, became her piano teacher between 1858 and 1859.

Pandora by Alexandre Cabanel, 1873. Nilsson was the model for this painting.

In 1860, Nilsson gave her professional debut in concerts in Stockholm and Uppsala, receiving mixed reviews. It was then decided that she should seek further training in Paris. Adelaide de Leuhusen's sister, the artist Bertha Valerius, was planning a trip there anyway, and would be able to act as a chaperone while Nilsson got settled in. In Paris, Nilsson initially stayed in Madame Crespy's pension, before transferring to Clara Collinet's school in Batignolles, where she stayed for three years. She studied for a year with Jean Jacques Masset, a retired tenor who had become a prominent voice teacher. He professed himself very pleased with Nilsson's voice and progress. Adelaide de Leuhusen disagreed, believing Masset was too lenient and was spoiling Nilsson. She may also have been concerned his training would damage Nilsson's voice. In the autumn of 1861, therefore, Adelaide de Leuhusen transferred Nilsson to Pierre François Wartel, who had been a student of the famous singer Adolphe Nourrit. Nilsson's operatic début that year as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata at the Théâtre Lyrique was a splendid success, despite Nilsson being unknown to the public . She also sang in Uppsala, Kristiania (Oslo), Gothenburg, Växjö, Malmö and Copenhagen. This was followed by a debut in January 1877 at the Hofoper in Vienna in the role of Ophélie, after which she was appointed Imperial Austro-Hungarian Court and Chamber Singer. She also performed in Budapest, Hamburg and Brussels, before returning to London for another opera season. In the autumn of 1877 she traveled again to Russia and here she was appointed Imperial Russian Chamber Singer. Though described as of moderate power, Nilsson's voice in her prime was described as of "crystalline brilliancy, resonance, and purity of tone." Perfectly even in its register, when she began singing she could reportedly span three and a half octaves, though after her first three years of stage singing this had diminished to an easy two and a half octaves stretching from a low G natural to a high D. She was particularly popular with English audiences for the "crystalline ethereal quality of her voice", especially in oratorio.

She is mentioned in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

She is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Christine Daaé, the heroine of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. Towards the end of his life, Leroux claimed the character was based on a real opera singer "whose real name I hid under that of Christine Daaé", even to the point of using ideas and language from contemporary reviews of Nilsson's performances in Faust in 1869.

In popular culture Nilsson is a minor character in the first episode of Season 2 of the television series The Gilded Age, and was played by Sarah Joy Miller. She is mentioned in chapters IV and VI of Anna Karenina.