Item #23956 Bust-length portrait photograph, signed in full and inscribed to Clarence E. Krause. Gladys SWARTHOUT.

Bust-length portrait photograph, signed in full and inscribed to Clarence E. Krause

Signed by the photographer, Herbert Mitchell, in white ink at lower left. Ca. 251 x 202 mm.

Slightly worn and soiled.

American contralto Gladys Swarthout "studied singing in Chicago, making her operatic début there in 1924 as the Shepherd-boy in Tosca; the following year she sang Carmen at Ravinia. Her début role at the Metropolitan was La Cieca (La Gioconda, 1929); she performed there regularly until 1945, as Siébel, Preziosilla, Adalgisa and – her most famous roles – Mignon and Carmen. She also sang in the première of Hanson’s Merry Mount (1934). After 1954 she retired to Florence." Swarthout had a "fine, well-placed voice" and a beautiful, but placid stage presence. She starred in five films for Paramount Pictures. Max de Schauensee in Grove Music Online.

Mitchell (1898-1980) was a noted photographer of theatrical celebrities in the 1930s, with a studio on Broadway in New York City.

Item #23956

Price: $120.00  other currencies

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