Opera Scotland

Francis Maclennan Suggest updates

Born 1873.

Died 1935.

American tenor.

Francis Maclennan sang leading Wagnerian roles with the Denhof company (1910 - 1912).  Before that, from 1907, he spent several years working in Germany, particularly at Berlin and Hamburg, where his wife, the English soprano Florence Easton, also worked before joining Denhof.

They then returned to Hamburg and continued to sing there, as American citizens, even after 1914. During their three years in Hamburg they appeared together in several operas by Meyerbeer (Les Huguenots);  Wagner (Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Die Walküre, Die Meistersinger); Verdi (Aida, Otello); Leoncavallo (Pagliacci); Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana); Puccini (Madama Butterfly) and Glasgow-born Eugen d'Albert's Die toten Augen.  On his own he also sang Tristan and Siegfried.

When the United States entered the war in 1917 they crossed the Atlantic, first as guests in Chicago, and later at the Met.

There is a recording (Gramophone Co.) of him singing 'Dir töne Lob' (Tannhäuser) made in 1908.