Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Marion Telva

 

 

 

 AMERICAN OPERA SINGER

 

BORN: December 6, 1897, St. Louis, Missouri

DIED: October 23, 1962, Norwalk, Connecticut

CAUSE OF DEATH: Unknown

BURIAL: Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Section 6

 

 By Allan R. Ellenberger

 

Marion Telva was born in St. Louis, Missouri to German immigrants, Herman and Elsa Toucke. There she received her vocal training and sang with the St. Louis Symphony. She went to New York in 1918 and sang in various churches and synagogues before being engaged by the Metropolitan Opera. She made her debut there as the Singer in Manon Lescaut on December 31, 1920.

 

Telva’s opera career was a versatile one, including such favorites as Faust, Aida and La Gioconda. Some of Telva’s regular roles at the Met included Mary in The Flying Dutchman; Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana and Brangane in Tristan and Isolde.  Many lesser known contralto roles included Tote Stadt, Snow Maiden, Don Quichotte, Bartered Bride, Jewels of Madonna, Louise, and Luisa Miller. The highlight of her career, however, was the 1927 revival of Norma, in which she sang “Adalgisa.” Others in that cast were Rosa Ponselle, Ciacomo Lauri-Volpi and Enzio Pinza, and the conductor was Tullio Serafin.

 

Telva left the Metropolitan Opera in 1931 after the last performance of Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson the premiere of which she had sung in that year. In 1930 she was married to Elmer Ray Jones, president of the Wells Fargo Company (more about him in a future posting) at St. George’s Church, Stuyvesant Square. She was to have retired (at her new husbands urging), however, she returned to the Met in the 1932-1933 season to sing in a concert that was her final appearance there.

 

Her last major New York appearance was in the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven with Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic in 1935. She also appeared in Los Angeles operas under the auspices of the Grand Opera Association.

 

Telva and her husband made their home in the Silvermine section of Norwalk, Connecticut and also had residences in Mexico City and Taxco, Mexico. The Taxco residence was a Wells Fargo property named Rancho Telva. Her husband died in 1961 and she passed away a little over a year later. She was 64 years old.

  

 Marion Telva’s grave marker at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

 

Hear Rosa Ponselle and Marion Telva sing “Mira O Norma”

 

The preceding is one in a series of biographical sketches of

Hollywood Forever Cemetery residents.

 

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