Ragna Linne

Linne began her performing career in Norway in 1882, and began teaching students in Oslo in 1884.^[6] She traveled to the United States where she made her first appearance in America at Turn Hall in Boston on March 28, 1886.^[7] The following June she performed as the soprano soloist in a concert of a truncated version of Gioachino Rossini's Stabat Mater with the Boston Oratorio Society.^[8] She made her Broadway debut on August 16, 1886 at the Bijou Opera House as Legrand Foudre in Owen Westford, Susie Russell, and George Scheiffarth's musical Soldiers and Sweethearts.^[9] At the time of her New York debut in 1886 The New York Times reported that she had previously appeared on the opera stage at La Scala in Milan.^[10]

She moved to Chicago by 1891, and sang Norwegian folk songs at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.^[6] She was president of the Chicago Artists' Associations.^[11] She gave recitals,^[12][13] and toured as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.^[14]

Linne taught at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.^[15][16] One of her students there was singer Amy Ellerman.^[17] Linne and her students sang for the patients at the South Dakota State Insane Hospital in Yankton in 1913.^[18] She was an honorary member of Mu Phi Epsilon.^[5]

Linne was one of the first Scandinavians to become a member of the Bahá'í faith.^[19] She sang at Chicago Bahá'í conventions 1912 and 1914.^[20][21] She made a sound recording of the Bahá'í Benediction in 1923. Later in life, Linne performed and taught in the Los Angeles area.^[22][23] Metropolitan Opera soprano Harriet Henders was one of her pupils in Los Angeles.^[24]

Linne married lithographer Theodore Strobel. They had a daughter, Norma, who died in Chicago in 1902.^[25] Theodore Strobel died in 1905.^[26] She moved to southern California in the 1920s,^[27] and died there in 1934, at the age of 72.