Elsa Alsen

Alsen was born in Obra, Prussia, the daughter of a French mother and Norwegian father.^[1][2]

Alsen made her operatic debut in 1902, in Heidelberg.^[1] She sang as a contralto early in her career,^[3][4] then as a dramatic soprano, often in Wagnerian roles, especially Brünnhilde and Isolde.^[5][6] She appeared with various German opera companies for twenty years before her American debut in 1923, while touring with the Wagnerian Opera Company.^[7] She sang with the Chicago Civic Opera Company from 1925 to 1928.^[1]

Alsen gave a concert at New York's Aeolian Hall with Georg Liebling in 1925.^[8] She was "acclaimed with deafening applause" at a 1928 appearance in Detroit,^[9] sang with the Washington National Opera in February 1928,^[10] and sang arias at the Milwaukee Sängerfest later that year.^[11] In 1929 she sang at a large Memorial Day event in Los Angeles.^[12] She was a "favorite" at the Hollywood Bowl by 1930,^[3] and in the 1930s she sang at four concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra,^[13] and was a concert soloist with Paul Althouse at several events, including a Sängerfest in St. Paul in 1932,^[14] and with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1934.^[15]

Alsen made several recordings in the 1920s, all on the Columbia label.^[16] She appeared in an early sound-era film, The Rogue Song (1930). She was featured on radio programs in the 1930s.^[17] She was appointed director of the Cecilia Music School of the Madonna House Settlement in 1937.^[18] She taught voice students in New York City, into her eighties.^[1]

Alsen married Richard Henneberger in 1913. She became a naturalized United States citizen in the 1930s. She died in 1975, at the age of 94, at a nursing home in New York City.^[1]