Soprano. Fascinated with 'the stage' as a young girl, the idea of going into grand opera grew slowly. Sang in school productions and as member of Temple Israel choir. Began serious voice study at age 14 with her second voice teacher in St Louis, Stella Kellog Haines. Marries Charles H. Becker 22 Sep 1898. Begins further vocal study with Victor Capoul of the Paris Grand Opera first in New York and again in Paris. Pupil of M. Jacques Bouhy for three years; also pupil for a time with Marchesi and others. Meets, sings for Jean De Reszke who tells her, "You have a voice for the opera." Writes of her ambitions to her father in St. Louis who replied, "Keep off the stage, my child; it is a place of bitter disappointments." De Reszke writes back to her father with some pleasant predictions, winning his support. Meets (in Paris) Henry W Savage of the English Metropolitan Opera Company of New York and Castle Square Companies of Chicago and St Louis. Tells him she "wants to sing in heavy opera. I have been told that I have a dramatic voice." Although what Mr Savage was looking for "was a voice and talent suited to light operas", he thought a moment and asked her to call on him the next day. She sings for Mr Savage the 'Jewel Song' from Faust. Signs contract with Castle Square Opera Company, makes Chicago debut as Marguerite in Faust in Oct 1900; St Louis operatic debut as Berthe in Le prophète (in English) at opening week Nov 1900. She "showed the prevailing nervousness least of all the singers, not unduly excited and assumed absolute command of herself as the opera progressed." Cartloads of red roses and yellow chrysanthemums were tossed on the stage in the first act. She was "plumply pretty, bright-eyed, brown-locked and in voice that speaks much of excellence in other than a first performance." Sings Elsa in Lohengrin, Juliet in Roméo et Juliett Jan 1901. Sings as Marguerite in Castle Square production of Faust St Louis, Apr 1901. "Miss Ludwig looked the part of Marguerite to a nicety, sang it very sweetly, with that invariably true voice of hers, and acted with more dramatic fire than she usually displays." Sings in Castle Square production of La bohème in New York, 1901. Signs contract for her New York debut 16 Sep 1901 in Castle Square production at the Broadway Theater to sing Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana and Mimi in La bohème. First appearance as Carmen at the Century Theater in St Louis and the part of Musetta in La bohème, Mar 1902. Sings the next season as a prima donna with Henry Russell's San Carlo Opera Company. Receives invitation to appear at Le Grand Opéra, Paris, under contract from 1 May 1903 to Jan 1905. Sings Juliet in Roméo et Juliette 20 May 1903 for a large and appreciative audience, several times recalled. First use of her stage name, Jane Noria. At first she objected to anything but her own name but her manager Pierre Gailhard, attaché of the National Academy of Music, insisted that it is proper to take another name. Gailhard had looked through a list of saints until he found one she would accept. Jane Noria highly praised in leading French newspapers Le Figaro and Le Petit Bleu. Other performances included Elsa in Lohengrin, Nedda in Pagliacci and Elizabeth in Tannhäuser. "It frequently happens that when a foreign singer is engaged at "the Opera" she does not make her appearance till three, six or even twelve months after, but Mlle. Noria made her debut three weeks after her engagement and in less than six months she will have sung four different roles at the Opera, a triumph which no other American singer, with the exception of Sybil Sanderson, has ever achieved." Departs her Paris home for Italy in early 1906, leaving her husband Charles H Becker. She writes to her husband that she would not return to him. Becker obtains a divorce a few months later on grounds of desertion. In early Jun 1906 Josephine sends a one word cablegram to her family in St Louis: "FREED". In Jun 1907 she is engaged to Count Gian Placido Centanini: a wealthy member of Italian nobility with an estate near Rome; amateur conductor, member of the Metropolitan opera executive staff; and a friend and admirer of Giulio Gatti-Casazza (General Manager of La Scala in Milan) and conductor Arturo Toscanini. They are married in Paris on 21 Aug 1907. She wears a rope of pigeon blood rubies presented to her by the Count, whose mother Giulia gave her a necklace of 70 white diamonds, clasped with rubies, a tiara of 400 fine pearls, and other splendid jewels. They travel to the Centanini palace in Venice for a six weeks' honeymoon. 11 Jan 1908: in the San Carlo Opera Company performance as Aida, "Mme. Noria demonstrated beyond any skepticism the greatness and thoroughness of her art. Intensely dramatic, fully conscious of the limitations of the character and the possibility of overstepping its bounds, she sang and acted the part of the Ethiopian slave to perfection." By early 1908 she had won the admiration of famed Wagnerian conductor Felix Mottl and composer Richard Strauss--who commended her for committing his Salome in German in fifteen days. By Mar 1908 returns to St Louis and requests a court injunction through her attorney, Morton A. Mergentheim, against Henry Russell and the San Carlo Opera company for touring the country and advertising that she is with it, when she had already left the company. The opera company was using an understudy to sing in her name. Arrives in New York from Europe on 17 Oct 1909 with other members of the Metropolitan Opera House for the 1909 season: General Manager Gatti Casazza, G. Centanini, Arturo Toscanini. Jane Noria was known in Paris for her unusual costumes and designed some of her own for the Metropolitan season. Signs for her first season at the 1909 Metropolitan opera. On 27 Dec 1909, Geraldine Farrar was ill and could not sing in Faust. There was a search for Jane Noria who knows the opera. She was found at 5:30 pm, assembled her costumes and wigs in an hour and a half and, after having been stuck in traffic, arrived just after 8:30. One of the chorus girls had stood in her place for the first act. Twenty minutes later Jane Noria walked on to the stage to save the performance. Sings in Pagliacci with Enrico Caruso ( 31 Dec 1909 and 12 Feb 1910). Will sing in Lehar's operetta, Gypsy Love; and in La Habanera and L'Attaque du Moulin. Feb 1910, participates in a jury of five of New York's most prominent musical critics who praise the voice of a promising new singer, Miss Marie La Salle, of Beatrice, Nebraska. (The jury consisted of Arturo Toscanini, head of the Metropolitan Opera company; Gatti Casazza, general manager; G . Centanini, assistant general manager, Mme. Jane Noria, wife of Centanini and principal soprano of the opera company; and Ricardo Martin, leading tenor.) Sings Marguerite in Faust Apr 1910, a Metropolitan Opera Co. presentation at the Coliseum in St Louis. "The Marguerite of her singing is conceded to be among the most notable of all portrayals of that appealing part in the operatic world of today. Her beauty and personal grace add much to the charm of her Marguerite, and that role's lovely score is exquisitely suited to a full revelation of her rich vocal gifts. She is equally at home in French, German, Italian and English. Hers is one of those extremely rare combinations of a surpassingly lovely voice, great personal beauty, intellect of a high order, and an artistic instinct that is at once certain and delicate." Sings Nedda in Pagliacci in Atlanta on 7 May 1910. "Mme. Noria is frequently taken for a true Sicilian, especially when she sings such roles as Pagliacci. Her Italian diction is perfect, and she possesses, too, a rare degree of sinking her own personality into that of the character she portrays. In private life she represents quite an opposite appearance, and she is a blonde, with hazel eyes, and bewildering white teeth; has not a drop of Italian blood in her, although married to an Italian." Arrives in New York 23 Aug 1910 on the Kronprinz Wilhelm with the National Opera Company. Meets Florence Ziegfeld and his wife Anna Held. Writes an article for the New York Times, 28 Aug 1910 advocating for a national opera sung in English. 29 Aug 1910 - Jane Noria performs in Mexico City for the centennial of Mexican independence with 140 opera singers of the National Opera Company, some from the Metropolitan Opera Company . (Hopes to see several bull fights during the four week engagement, believes it will help her sing the role of Carmen with greater effectiveness.) In Dec 1910 cancels a planned 1911 tour due to illness. No further performances are scheduled until a St Louis voice recital in January 1914. After that her career was further interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. By the end of summer 1914 she and the colony of American artists at Ile aux Moines off the coast of Brittany are harvesting their own crops of corn and other cereals , because all the men in the vicinity have gone to war. Volunteers with her husband for the American Red Cross in Avellino, Italy in Dec 1918 to help in fight against epidemic Spanish influenza. Organizes the "banditti" or hoodlums of Avellino into street-cleaning and white-washing squads. These squads along with the local women carried off rubbish, disinfected homes, burned up old mattresses and germ-laden refuse. Returns to St Louis from her home in Geneva, Switzerland in late Jan 1920 to be near her mother who is seriously ill from heart disease. On 24 Mar 1924 her family in St Louis received word of her death and that the funeral was held that day in France. [Primary Sources: St Louis Post-Dispatch 1898-1924; St Louis Republic 1900-1903]

Bio by Kent Charles Bode May 26, 2018.