Inez Fabbri

Inez Fabbri (26 January 1831 – 30 August 1909), née Agnes Schmidt, was an Austrian American soprano, voice teacher and impresaria. She sang in Austria, Germany, England, South America and the Caribbean, making her home in San Francisco where, in the 1870s, she was the most important musical personality and prima donna assoluta of her time, performing in more than 150 concerts and operas from 1872 to 1879, producing operas, and teaching voice to up-and-coming singers.

Early career She was the daughter of an impoverished Viennese textile manufacturer. She made a successful operatic debut in Kassa, Hungary, (now Košice, Slovakia) in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in 1847. After a few years on the road singing in Königsberg (1856–1857) and Potsdam (1857), she arrived at the Hamburgischerer Stadttheater where, among other roles, she received recognition for Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots which became one of her starring roles.

Here she met Richard Mulder (1822–1874), a Dutch musician and impresario whom she married in 1858. From then on she would use her stage name, "Fabbri" (Italian for "Schmidt/Smith").

American career

In 1860, she was engaged by Max Maretzek to sing at his Winter Garden Theatre in New York. Her highly acclaimed American debut was as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata. Shortly thereafter, she sang Elvira in Ernani in which The New York Times wrote that "she was more dramatic and powerful" [than in her role as Violetta] and "a dramatic actress of the first class". "Mme. Fabbri was called out twice after each act, and the finale to the third act was encored."

Her debut at the Winter Garden was followed by tours in the American Mid-West, Canada and the Caribbean Islands. She was especially well received in Puerto Rico but lost all her possessions in a fire.

Later years In 1878, she married, secondly, the baritone Jacob Müller (or Muller), a former student of her late husband. In 1881, she ended her singing career but continued her activities as an impresaria. After large financial losses she lived in Los Angeles from 1891 but later returned to San Francisco where she again lost her assets in a fire believed to be arson. Her archives are housed at the University of California, Berkeley. and her definitive original portrait is housed at the San Francisco Museum of Performing Arts and Design as donated by the Constance Jacoby Horstman and Janet Richmond Families.