Alice Miriam Pinch

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Alice Miriam Pinch (October 17, 1887 – July 22, 1922) was an American soprano who sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York for two seasons. She used the stage name Alice Miriam. Her promising career ended when she died after surgery for appendicitis.

Early life and start of singing
She was born in Newton, Kansas, the fifth of seven children. Her father, Rev. Pearse Pinch, was a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and her mother was Mary Pinch. The family moved around the Midwest and settled near Washington, D.C., in Glendale, Maryland. Alice sang in her church choir from a young age and gave solos by eight. By twelve she earned money singing at funerals and other events.

Training and Europe
A performance near Chicago brought her to the attention of Emily Hutchinson Crane, a wealthy patron who financed five years of European voice training. Pinch arrived in Paris in 1911 to study with Jean de Reszke and stayed there until 1914. In Paris she became engaged to Arnold Rönnebeck, a German sculptor. With the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Germany, and Alice moved to Milan to study with Georges Cunelli. Cunelli later wrote about her early success. She sang professionally across Europe before returning to the United States in 1919.

Caruso tour and Metropolitan Opera
Pinch sailed from Genoa to New York on September 4, 1919. On September 28, 1919 she joined Enrico Caruso on an eleven-city North American tour, his last. After the tour she began her seasons with the Metropolitan Opera. In her second season she filled in for Lucrezia Bori in The Snow Maiden when the lead singer fell ill. She also gave recitals around New York, including a Town Hall appearance in January 1922 with Allen Tanner premiering Karol Szymanowski’s song cycle Słopiewnie Op. 46 bis.

Final performances and death
Pinch’s last Met performance was April 29, 1922, in Atlanta as Siebel in Faust. Her contract had been renewed for three more years, but she died later that year in New York City after surgery for appendicitis. Funeral services were held in Glendale, Maryland.

Legacy
Arnold Rönnebeck immigrated to the United States in 1923 and stayed with the Pinch family. The poet Marsden Hartley dedicated his first book of poems to Alice Miriam Pinch, and music critic Paul Rosenfeld wrote essays praising her work.