She had the world at her feet and men loved her. Her inimitable soprano was the epitome of pure beauty. With extraordinary power and an inexhaustible range of expression she brilliantly mastered a repertoire of more than eighty major opera roles.
Ema was born on 26th February 1878 in Prague, as Emilie Pavlína Věnceslava Kittlová. Her father, Emanuel Kittl, was a wealthy businessman. Yet right from the start of her career she struggled against being misunderstood. The director of the National Theatre, F. A. Šubert, once even threw her out of a rehearsal with the words: “Young lady, it seems that you’re getting angry when you sing. I recommend you take a shower!” Young Ema, however, did not give up; she took the pseudonym Destinnová after her singing teacher and set off out into the world. She made her debut in 1897 in the Dresden court opera in the role of Santuzza and was such a success that she was immediately accepted into the Berlin opera. Emperor Wilhelm II even fell in love with her and acclaimed her as the first dramatic soprano of the Berlin court opera. In 1908 she accepted an invitation to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where she was the first to take on the role of Mařenka in The Bartered Bride. There, alongside Enrico Caruso, she starred in some of the most famous operas from around the world. Caruso also fell in love with her, as did Puccini, who wrote the opera “La fanciulla del West” (“The Girl of the West”) for her. When she yearned to return to her homeland in 1916, she was arrested at the border on suspicion of being a spy and had to remain at her chateau in Stráž pod Nežárkou under house arrest until the end of the war.
In 1923 she married Josef Halsbach, an offi cer in the Czechoslovak airforce who was much younger than her, but their marriage turned out to be a fiasco. In 1928 retreated into seclusion at her chateau with the words: “There’s nothing worse than having to watch an old woman on the stage”, which was her creed in life. Ema Destinnová died of a stroke during an eye operation on 28th January 1930. She is buried alongside other famous Czechs in Slavín Cemetery in Vysehrad, Prague, and lives on in our hearts in the famous film “Divine Emma” (“Božská Ema” -1979).
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