Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (4 October 1834 – 9 May 1906) was the leading English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 concert and operatic soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 of the 1860s.

Early life

Born in Preston, England, in 1834, Helen Sherrington studied singing at Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

 and Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

. She began her London career on the concert platform, and in 1857 she married the Belgian organist and composer Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens , was an organist and composer for his instrument.Born at Zoerle-Parwijs, near Westerlo, Belgium, Lemmens took lessons from François-Joseph Fétis, who wanted to make him into a musician capable of renewing the organ-player's art in Belgium...

 (1823-1881), who founded the School of Church Music at Mechelen

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

 in 1878.

Stage career

Her stage debut occurred in 1860, with the first production of a new opera, Robin Hood

Robin Hood (opera)

For the comic opera by Reginald De Koven, see Robin Hood .Robin Hood is a ballad opera by Michael Tippett based on the legend of Robin Hood. Composed in 1934, the score remains unpublished...

, by George Macfarren

George Macfarren

George Macfarren was a playwright and the father of composer George Alexander Macfarren. Macfarren's first play, Ah! What a Pity, or, The Dark Knight and the Fair Lady, was produced on 28 September 1818 at the English Opera House; for the next several decades, a Macfarren play was produced...

 (libretto by John Oxenford

John Oxenford

John Oxenford , English dramatist, was born at Camberwell, London, England.-Life:He began his literary career by writing on finance...

). This was chosen by Edward Tyrrel Smith as the vehicle for an attempt to launch an English Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

, the English season to run concurrently with an Italian season on alternate nights. The singers engaged were Lemmens-Sherrington (Maid Marian

Maid Marian

Maid Marian is the wife of the legendary English outlaw Robin Hood. Stemming from another, older tradition, she became associated with Robin Hood only in the 16th century.-History:The earliest medieval Robin Hood stories gave him no female companion...

), Mme Lemaire, Charles Santley

Charles Santley

Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...

, Mr Parkinson and John Sims Reeves (Locksley). The orchestra was conducted on English nights by Sir Charles Hallé

Charles Hallé

Sir Charles Hallé was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.-Life:Hallé was born in Hagen, Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle...

. The duet with Reeves, 'When lovers are parted' and Marian's song 'True love, true love in my heart' (the theme of which ran through the whole score) were 'exquisitely warbled' and received enthusiastic applause. Indeed it was so successful that Reeves and Sherrington got a better box office even than Therese Tietjens and Antonio Giuglini

Antonio Giuglini

Antonio Giuglini was an Italian operatic tenor. During the last eight years of his life, before he developed signs of mental instability, he earned renown as one of the leading stars of the operatic scene in London...

 on the alternate nights in Il trovatore

Il trovatore

Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...

and Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

. Immediately after this, with Santley, Janet Monach Patey

Janet Monach Patey

Janet Monach Patey was an English concert and oratorio contralto.-Career:She had a fine alto voice, which developed into a contralto, and she studied singing under J. Wass, Ciro Pinsuti and Mrs Sims Reeves...

 and others, she appeared briefly in Wallace

William Vincent Wallace

William Vincent Wallace was an Irish composer and musician.-Early life:Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both parents were Irish, his father, of County Mayo, was a regimental bandmaster....

's The Amber Witch

The Amber Witch (opera)

The Amber Witch is an opera four acts composed by William Vincent Wallace to an English libretto by Henry Fothergill Chorley, after Lady Duff-Gordon's translation of Meinold's Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe....

, but the bailiffs moved in, and on transfer to Drury Lane Theatre

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 her role was taken by Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa

Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa

Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa was a British operatic soprano who established the Carl Rosa Opera Company together with second husband Carl Rosa...

.

In January to March 1864, at Her Majesty's, she sang Marguerite in Gounod's Faust

Faust (opera)

Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...

, in the second year of the English production, in the cast with Santley (introducing Dio possente), Reeves (distinguished in Act 1) and Marchesi (Mephisto). In the Royal English Opera at Covent Garden she appeared in Macfarren's Helvellyn

Helvellyn

Helvellyn is a mountain in the English Lake District, the apex of the Eastern Fells. At above sea level, it is the third highest peak in both the Lake District and England...

(also shared with Parepa-Rosa) and in Rose, or Love's Ransom. For the next two seasons she appeared in the Italian Opera at Covent Garden, appearing as Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

), Adalgisa (Norma

Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

), Élisabeth de Valois (Don Carlos

Don Carlos

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...

), Isabella (Robert le diable

Robert le diable

Robert le diable may refer to:* Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer* Robert the Devil, a medieval legend...

) and Prascovia (L'étoile du nord

L'étoile du nord

L'étoile du nord is an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe....

). After this, Sherrington's career took place more on the concert platform especially among the prestigious company of Santley, Patey, Antoinette Stirling, Sims Reeves and Signor Foli, at the ballad concerts then in full force under the management of John Boosey.

In 1871, she was one of the original group of musicians to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...

.

Teaching career

At the time of her husband's death, in 1881, Lemmens-Sherrington was appointed professor of singing at the Brussels Conservatory, and in 1891 at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

. From that time onwards she frequently resided in England. She also taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where one of her pupils was the contralto Edna Thornton.

She died in Brussels.