Rosa, Carl
1842-1889
Carl August Nicolas Rose, known as Rosa, was born at Hamburg; was a violin pupil of Lindenau from 1859 at the Leipsic Conservatory. He toured England, Denmark and Germany as a boy violinist of twelve. From 1863 to 1865 he was a leader at Hamburg, and in 1866 appeared as soloist at the Crystal Palace, London, then started on a tour to the United States, in which he met the famous singer, Euphrosyne Parepa, whom he married in New York, 1867. He formed the opera company known by his name, which numbered among its members noted singers of the period, and which traveled through America till 1871, when the company returned to England. Mme. Parepa-Rosa's death, in 1874, changed Rosa's plan of establishing opera in London, but in the next year he carried it out and introduced to the London public a number of the best contemporary operas, such as Faust, Carmen, Rienzi, and Lohengrin, and also presented a number of older standard works, by Mozart, Herold, Meyerbeer, Verdi and others. He thus became far more noted as an impresario than as a musician. Rosa died in Paris, aged forty-seven.