Kate Rolla

Kate Rolla
Kate Rolla, from an 1894 publication
Born	Katherine Doane Wheat 1859 Wheeling, West Virginia, US
Died	December 28, 1925 Paris, France
Other names	Katherine Rammelsberg, Caterina Rolla
Occupation(s)	Opera singer, voice teacher
Relatives	Larry Wheat (brother)

Kate Rolla (1859[1] – December 28, 1925), born Katherine Doane Wheat, was an American opera singer.

Early life and education

Katherine Doane Wheat was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the daughter of George Keiter Wheat and Fannie Josephine Doane Wheat. Her father was a banker and businessman, and her mother was a suffragist and clubwoman.[2][3] Her younger brother Larry Wheat became an actor.[4][5]

After an early first marriage faltered, Rolla went to Paris to train as a singer,[6] with Mathilde Marchesi.[7][8]

Career

Rolla made her operatic stage debut at the Teatro Carcano in Milan, singing the title role in Linda di Chamounix.[9] She sang in various European cities, from Dublin to Moscow. In 1887 she sang at the Teatro Bellini in Naples,[10] and returned to Wheeling to give a concert, fresh from "her foreign triumphs".[11] She sang at London's Covent Garden in 1888, in Don Giovanni, and in 1891, in Carmen and Le prophète. She sang in one production of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Mirette in 1894.[12][13] In 1896, she sang with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[14]

Contemporary descriptions of Rolla's voice record various estimations of her skill. "Her voice is of pure and bell-like quality," commented one American newspaper in 1887, "with a degree of power that is almost equal to that of Materna."[15] But a review in The New York Times was ambivalent in 1892, explaining that she "has a powerful voice of a somewhat metallic timbre, but she sang her numbers with considerable taste and fairly won her applause."[16]

Rolla appeared in two Broadway musical productions, The Return of Eve (1909) and Molly May (1910).[17] By that time, her singing voice had faded: "Kate Rolla as Mrs. Sparks was excellent till she tried to sing," said one 1910 reviewer.[18] Rolla taught voice students in New York City during World War I.[19]

Personal life

Katherine Wheat married Oscar Rammelsberg in 1876 and had a son, George, born in 1879 in Ohio. The Rammelsbergs divorced in 1883.[20] She died late in 1925, in her sixties, from an infection after an appendectomy.[21]

References

1. Rolla's year of birth appears variously in sources, from 1856 to 1865. She was described as 11 years old in the 1870 U. S. Census, suggesting the 1859 date. (Her 1876 marriage date makes a much later birthdate unlikely.)
2. History of the Upper Ohio Valley, with Family History and Biographical Sketches: History of the upper Ohio valley, by G. L. Cranmer. Ohio county, W. Va., by the G. L. Cranmer. The Pan-handle, by G. L. Cranmer. Medical history of the Pan-handle, by S. L. Jepson. Biographical sketches, Brooke, Hancock and Marshall cos., W. Va. Brant & Fuller. 1890. pp. 470–472.
3. "Noted Woman is Dead". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 1906-08-09. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
4. "Footlights". The Club-Fellow. May 24, 1905.
5. "A Thespian Jack-of-All-Trades". The Green Book Magazine. 6: 211. July 1911.
6. "Untitled social item". Pittsburgh Daily Post. 1892-04-21. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
7. Burroughs, Marie (1904). The Marie Burroughs Art Portfolio of Stage Celebrities: A Collection of Photographs of the Leaders of Dramatic and Lyric Art. A.N. Marquis.
8. Marchesi, Mathilde (2013-06-27). Marchesi and Music: Passages from the Life of a Famous Singing-Teacher. Cambridge University Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-108-06372-2.
9. "Topics of Interest Abroad". The New York Times. January 2, 1885. p. 1 – via ProQuest.
10. "Fighting for Fame, Which She So Well Deserves". The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer. 1887-03-19. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
11. "Mme. Rolla's Triumph in Wheeling". North's Philadelphia Musical Journal. 2: 6–7. October 1887.
12. "Kate Rolla". The D'Oyly Cartes Opera Company, GSArchive. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15.
13. "Mirette". The Era. 1894-10-13. p. 15. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
14. "Fifteenth Symphony Program". The Boston Globe. 1896-02-16. p. 15. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
15. "Mme. Kate Rolla". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 1887-09-17. p. 7. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
16. "Amusements: Chickering Hall". The New York Times. December 10, 1892. p. 4 – via ProQuest.
17. Dietz, Dan (2021-06-15). The Complete Book of 1910s Broadway Musicals. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-1-5381-5028-3.
18. "Hackett--Molly May". The New York Dramatic Mirror. April 16, 1910. p. 5. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
19. Trapper, Emma Louise. The musical blue book of America, 1915- recording in concise form the activities of leading musicians and those actively and prominently identified with music in its various departments. Music - University of Toronto. New York, Musical blue book corporation. p. 313.
20. "Another Broken Home". The Champaign Daily Gazette. 1883-12-20. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2021-05-15. Retrieved 2021-05-15 – via Newspapers.com.
21. U.S., Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835-1974, National Archives; report for Mrs. Katherine Wheat Rammelsberg, died December 28, 1925. via Ancestry

External links

• Kate Rolla at the Internet Broadway Database
• An illustration depicting Kate Rolla, at Getty Images
• "A Wheeling, Va prima donna given her due" Kurt of Gerolstein (December 14, 2020), a blog post about Rolla