Nevada (real name, Wixom), Emma

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Nevada (real name, Wixom), Emma

Nevada (real name, Wixom), Emma, noted American soprano, mother of Mignon (Mathilde Marie) Nevada; b. Alpha, near Nevada City, Calif., Feb. 7, 1859; d. Liverpool, June 20, 1940. She studied from 1877 with Marchesi in Vienna. She made her operatic debut as Amina at London’s Her Majesty’s Theatre (May 17, 1880); then sang in the leading Italian music centers, including Milan’s La Scala (1881). Her first appearance in Paris was at the Opéra-Comique, May 17, 1883, as Zora in F. David’s Perle du Brésil. During the 1884–85 season, she was a member of Col. Mapleson’s company at the Academy of Music in N.Y., singing on alternate nights with Patti. She sang in Chicago at the Opera Festival in 1885, and again in 1889. She then sang mostly in Europe; retired in 1910.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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