Edythe Shuttleworth

Life and career Shuttleworth was born in 1907, She matriculated to The Royal Conservatory of Music before studying under La Scala coach Giovanni Pinetti in Italy. Shuttleworth made her debut at the Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto in early 1928. After giving more than 200 concerts in an extensive tour of the rural areas of both Western Canada and the Central United States, and went on to sing in the first broadcast of a concert in Toronto on the Eastern Chain of the radio network CNR. Shuttleworth also broadcast on Montreal's CNRM radio station. Her teachers in France were Pauline Donalda, In 1929, Shuttleworth was selected to sing on the radio for the inaugural international broadcast to the United States from Paris' Eiffel Tower. In 1930, Shuttleworth returned to Canada. Shuttleworth returned to conduct an evening recital in Montreal's St James United Church to commemorate Saint Patrick's Day in March 1932.

She made her operatic debut in the United States with the National Opera Company at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1934. The following month, she was a guest artist at Toronto's St. James United Church, performing to a capacity crowd.

Retirement and death

Following her marriage in 1938, Shuttleworth retired from professional singing. She died on December 23, 1983, in Toronto.

Artistry and legacy Shuttleworth had a dramatic soprano voice. A Toronto voice critic noted the singer gave "a strongly incisive character" and could develop herself "in the moods of her renditions." The Montreal Gazette wrote she had no control herself enough to produce a united "vocalizing and interpretation into a consistent whole. In the former, the registers are uneven and her power of sustaining musical phrases are weak. In the latter, unrestrained emotion too, often gets the better of musical, especially rhythmic, balance."