always retained his high opinion of Tietjens and her art, attended her last performance. It was Lucrezia at Her Majesty's on 19 May 1877. She had known for some time that her body harboured a malignant growth, and she gave this performance prior to undergoing a surgical procedure designed to ease her affliction. She was really too ill to go on, but insisted. After each of the acts she fainted and had to be resuscitated, but while on stage showed no sign of her physical suffering, and only a few in the audience knew her condition. Her final scream, as Lucrezia realises that Gennaro is dead, sent a shudder through the house, and she did not shirk the painful fall to the stage at the close. The curtain rose twice to the applause, but she was again unconscious and lay motionless. The operation went ahead as planned but it was to no avail: she died in London on 3 October 1877. She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery 'in the presence of a vast crowd, amid tokens of public grief such as no foreign artist before her had ever been vouchsafed on English soil.' Among her achievements, she had introduced London to Gounod's Faust and Mireille, Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Les vêpres siciliennes and La forza del destino, and Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, while maintaining for almost 20 years a repertoire that also embraced Oberon, Der Freischütz, Fidelio, Médée, Die Zauberflöte, Il Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro and, of course, her signature part of Lucrezia Borgia—and many other roles besides, such as Ortrud. Assessments According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[h]er voice was a dramatic soprano of magnificent quality, and her powers as an actress were supreme." "The great volume and purity of her voice and her sympathetic and dignified acting combined to make her famous in strong dramatic parts." Michael Scott suggests that Emma Albani attempted, unsuccessfully, to 'inherit the mantle' of Tietjens, but that Lillian Nordica and Lilli Lehmann (both of whom can be heard on recordings made in the early 1900s) were more natural successors to her vocal tradition. References Sources R. Elkin, Royal Philharmonic, The Annals of the Royal Philharmonic Society (Rider, London 1946). G. T. Ferris, Great Singers: Malibran to Titiens (D. Appleton & Co, New York 1881). H. Klein, 30 Years of Musical Life in London, 1870–1900 (Century, New York