Natalia Macfarren (1827 – 1916) was a German-English contralto singer and a prolific translator of German and Italian operatic works into English.
Life
editShe was born Clarina Thalia Andrae in Lübeck in 1827 to a German bandmaster who became attached to an English regiment. She was trained as a pianist and contralto at the Royal Academy of Music, where she married one of her instructors, composer George Alexander Macfarren, on 27 September 1844. Her operatic debut came in 1849 when she appeared in the first performance of her husband’s opera King Charles II.
After her husband’s death she was Principal of her alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music.
She died in Bakewell on 9 April 1916.
Works
editIn 1868 she published an Elementary Course for Vocalizing and Pronouncing the English Language.
From the 1870s she translated German and Italian operas into English. She was one of the first translators to introduce the works of Wagner to an English-speaking audience, and both translated and edited Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Her translations were praised for their accuracy and flair, and Pierre Degott credits them with making 'enormous impact…in the advancement and development of the operatic form in the English-speaking world.'