Dates

• Existence: 1877 - 1909

Biography

Rose Ettinger was born Alice Ida Ettinger on February 10, 1877, in Oregon, Illinois to E. Blanche Ettinger and Alonzo L. Ettinger. She moved to the state of Iowa at the age of four and in 1887 moved to Waterloo, where her father was a businessman.

At the age of fourteen she went to Chicago to study voice with Hans Balatka for two terms and then continued her studies with Sarah Hershey Eddy (1837-?) for periods of seven to ten weeks at a time between 1893 and 1895. At the suggestion of Mrs. Eddy, she changed her name from Alice to Rose. Mrs. Eddy was the founder of the Hershey School of Musical Art and was married to Clarence Eddy (1851-1937), a noted organist and composer. She was the daughter of Benjamin Hershey, a prominent Muscatine, Iowa lumber merchant.

In the summer of 1895 Ettinger travelled to Europe with Mrs. Eddy to begin her concert career. From the fall of 1895 until late 1897 she studied in Paris with Mathilde Marchesi (1821-1913), a renowned German mezzo-soprano and pedagogue. On May 12, 1896, she appeared at the Trocadero in Paris with Clarence Eddy before a crowd of 4000.

Ettinger visited Waterloo in the summer of 1897 and that fall returned to Europe to perform extensively on the continent, including a concert to honor Massenet and one in Potsdam for the German empress.

On December 7, 1899, Ettinger married baritone Francis Braun of Liverpool, England, son of Marie Brema (1856-1925), the noted English contralto. In 1905 Ettinger won the medal of science and art in Dessan, Germany, presented by the Duke of Anhalt. She continued her career in Europe but stopped performing in 1907 because of poor health.

Ettinger died of a cerebral hemorrhage on May 13, 1909 at the age of thirty two and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, Kensington, London.

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