Teresa Carreño Suggest updates
Maria Teresa Gertrudis de Jesús Carreño Garcia.
Born Caracas, 22 December 1853.
Died New York City, 12 June 1917.
Venezuelan pianist, soprano, composer and conductor.
Teresa Carreño had a long career as a concert pianist, touring the world from childhood until shortly before her death. She played before both Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson.
Her repertoire included many of her own compositions, and these made a full display of her dazzling technique.
As the following letter shows, Carreño did not restrict her musical activities to the piano.
The Scotsman: Saturday, 16 June 1945. Letters to the Editor - Glasgow, 14 June 1945. 'Sir, It is recorded that Teresa Carreño, the celebrated pianist, who was well-known to concert-goers of an earlier generation, once appeared in Edinburgh upon the operatic stage. 'Mapleson, the impresario, was giving a season of Italian opera, when one of his principal singers took ill, shortly before a performance of The Huguenots, in which she was cast for the part of the Queen. Failing to find a substitute, he is said to have proposed to the young pianist that she should sing the part. So, on very short notice, and without previous stage experience, she did so with brilliant success, though not knowing how she would acquit herself, she assumed another name. 'As the incident is interesting, and, I believe, unique, I wonder if any of your readers have further details of the appearance which Carreño made in Meyerbeer's opera in the Scottish capital. I am, &c. D C Parker.'Mapleson's 'Royal Italian Opera' performed in Edinburgh in 1873 and 1874, giving this opera in both seasons. Carreño, not much more than twenty, would still be classed as a young pianist, though she had been before the public for nearly a decade.
Precise details of this remarkable event remain to be confirmed.
