Rosa de Vries: A Dutch Diva and Nineteenth-Century Trans-Atlantic Operatic Culture

In an arduous, twenty-year international career, Dutch opera soprano Rosa de Vries née van Os (1824-89) performed both French and Italian opera repertory with leading companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Experiencing triumphs and disappointments while managing both career and family, de Vries represents a class of mid-century opera singers, celebrated in their time but little remembered today. This article tells the story of de Vries's life and career, and in doing so aims to contribute to an understanding of transatlantic operatic life at the time. This reconstruction of Rosa de Vries offers a gateway for further studies of the cultural heritage of an important period in the history of opera and the strenuous demands of an international operatic marketplace.