McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Sarah Eugenie Fischer Fonds
Fonds
30 cm of textual records and audio cassettes.
Mezzo-soprano Sarah Fischer was born in Paris of a Polish Family and came to Montréal at the age of twelve or thirteen. Here she began vocal training, and in 1917 won the Strathcona Scholarship, enabling her to study at the Royal College of Music in London for three years. Between the wars she pursued a successful operatic and concert career. In 1940 she inaugurated the Sarah Fischer Concerts for young performers.
Madame Fischer's papers are evenly divided between records of her own career as a performer and material on the Sarah Fischer Concerts. Her performing career is documented by newsclippings, tributes and programmes, reports from the Royal College of Music, and publicity photographs in opera costume. Most of the approximately 50 items of correspondence date from the last five years of her life and concern the disposal of her papers. Taped interviews, in which she discusses her career, include recordings from 1918 and 1925. Material connected with the Sarah Fischer Concerts comprises 143 programmes (1941-1975), press notices, announcements, and a report for 1973-1974. Photographs from this period show Fischer with government and musical celebrities.
Photocopies of Originals in Public Archives of Canada; Audio-tapes