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Alice Geraldine Farrar (February 28, 1882 – March 11, 1967) was an American lyric soprano who could also sing Dramatic soprano roles. She was noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." In the 1910s, she also found success as an actress in . She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers". The New York Times, "Hail Farrar Queen as She Sings Adieu", April 23, 1922, p. 20
She recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements.
She starred in more than a dozen films from 1915 to 1920, including Cecil B. De Mille's 1915 adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen." The film’s premiere at Symphony Hall in Boston was preceded by a fulsome publicity campaign and garnered effusive reviews by critics.Wagenknecht, 1962 p. 170 San Francisco Call & Post wrote:
For her performance, she came in first among the women in the 1916 "Screen Masterpiece" contest held by Motion Picture Magazine.Ahead of Marguerite Clark, Mary Pickford, and Theda Bara. One of her other notable screen roles —and the one that Farrar personally ranked her finest—was as Joan of Arc in the 1917 film Joan the Woman.Wagenknecht, 1962 p. 170-171: “...the only one of her films she ranks with her great achievements…”
In June 1931, Farrar made her debut radio broadcast over the National Broadcasting Company's nationwide "Red" network. Geraldine Farrar to Sing For Radio", New York Times, June 23, 1931, Section R, page 37.
In 1960, Farrar was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the music and film categories, located at 1620 and 1709 Vine Street.
Her marriage to actor Lou Tellegen on February 8, 1916, was the source of considerable scandal. The marriage ended, as a result of her husband's numerous affairs, in a very public divorce in 1923. The circumstances of the divorce were brought again to public recollection by Tellegen's bizarre 1934 suicide in Hollywood. Farrar reportedly said "Why should that interest me?" when told of Tellegen's death.
Farrar retired from opera in 1922 at the age of 40. Her final performance was as Leoncavallo's Zazà. By this stage, her voice was in premature decline due to overwork. According to the American music critic Henry Pleasants, the author of The Great Singers from the Dawn of Opera to Our Own Time (first published 1967), she gave between 25 and 35 performances each season at the Met alone. They included 95 appearances as Madama Butterfly and 58 as Carmen in 16 seasons. The title role in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, which she had added to her repertoire in 1909, was another one of her favourite Met parts.
Farrar quickly transitioned into concert recitals, and was signed (within several weeks of announcing her opera retirement) to an appearance at Hersheypark on Memorial Day 1922. She continued to make recordings and give recitals throughout the 1920s and was briefly the intermission commentator for the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts during the 1934–35 season. Her unusual autobiography, Such Sweet Compulsion, published in 1938, was written in alternating chapters purporting to be her own words and those of her deceased mother, with Mrs. Farrar rather floridly recounting her daughter's many accomplishments.
In 1967, Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut of heart disease aged 85, and was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. She had no children.
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