Charlotte Cushman
“Art is an absolute mistress; she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.” – Charlotte Cushman
Charlotte Cushman’s voice had the character of a deep contralto, resonant and dominant, a startling sound to those who heard it. Teachers believed it might carry her to opera stage fame, and for a time it did. She sang with much promise. But taking a performing role that proved to be beyond her natural range, Charlotte strained her voice until it gave way. The collapse ended her hopes of a singing career.
Yet what might have been ruin turned by chance into opportunity. Offered an acting part in the same theatre, she stepped onto the stage as Lady Macbeth. And in the very moment when one career closed, another, greater one began.
Charlotte’s memorable voice, coupled with her personality, became a commanding strength onstage. She rose to become arguably America’s first celebrity and one of the most celebrated performers of the nineteenth century, embodying Shakespearean heroes with a ferocity and depth that astonished audiences.
Charlotte was born in Boston in July 1816, during what became known as “the year without a summer,” after Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted the year prior, casting volcanic ash into the atmosphere and disrupting the weather worldwide. Crops failed, famine spread, and in New England, snow fell in June and rivers froze under a pale July sky. The “seasons turned backward,” one New Englander wrote.
It was, in general, a difficult time in the U.S. The War of 1812, America’s second fight for independence from the British, resulted in victory but led to an economic recession. Many men lost their businesses and suffered from high rates of alcoholism. None of which helped the still nascent country’s image abroad as a “vulgar”, backwards nation of “religious fanatics.”