Georgina Ann Stirling was the pride of Twillingate, Newfoundland. The soprano performed in opera houses across Europe and the United States, becoming the province’s first international opera singer.
Her nickname was The Nightingale of the North.
That’s also the title of a song newly recorded by soprano Tonia Evans Cianciulli, a pop/classical crossover that celebrates Stirling’s life and career.
Singer, songwriter, soprano and author Tonia Evans Cianciulli is a native of St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has performed across North America in genres that range from opera to her own songs, and often covers the work of Ron Hynes in celebration of Newfoundland heritage.
It’s not Tonia’s first exploration of Stirling and her legacy. Evans Cianciulli, with her grandfather Calvin D. Evans, co-authored a book titled The Heart’s Obsession – An Intimate Biography of Newfoundland Songstress Georgina Stirling that was published by Flanker Press Ltd in 2022. The foreword was written by the late Maestro Kerry Stratton.
It was the connection with Hynes’ music that first drew Evans Cianciulli to Georgina. Tonia recorded his song Marie, dedicated to Stirling; a song written by one Newfoundland legend, singer-songwriter Ron Hynes (1950 – 2015) about another.
Georgina Ann Stirling
Georgina Ann Stirling was born April 3, 1867 in Twillingate, Newfoundland, and died in her hometown on April 21, 1935.
Georgina’s entry into music came via the organ, and she began studying the instrument at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Twillingate at an early age. She practiced for about four hours a day, and began performing as a young teenager.
She was the youngest of seven sisters, and after her mother died when Georgina was just 15, she was sent to Toronto to live with one of her older sisters. She attended a boarding and day school, and within a few months, she was also studying piano and organ with Carl Martens, who had studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, Germany.
Georgina also began to study voice, inspired by hearing Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson in performance. After two years of study, she returned to Twillingate, and the beauty of her voice struck the British governor of the colony, Henry Arthur Blake, who happened to hear her sing. Blake, and others, encouraged her family to send her to Italy to train as an opera singer.
She would spend two years studying in Florence, where she gave many performances, and made her operatic debut in 1890. Her career was launched in Europe, and she went to London in 1891, then to Paris, where she continued her studies.
Georgina made her Paris debut in 1893 and chose the stage name Marie Toulinguet, which was the original French name for Twillingate. Her career took her throughout Europe and to the US, where she performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and many other prominent ensembles.
Personal and medical problems with her vocal chords would sideline her career for a few years, but she made a comeback in 1901.
Georgina returned to Twillingate in 1928, and sang for the local church and at community concerts, coached other singers, and kept active until her death in 1935.
The memorial stone created in her honour in Twillingate is carved with the inscription “entertained royalty by the sweetness of her voice, and the poor by the kindness of her heart.”
Nightingale of the North
Tonia Evans Cianciulli is based in Toronto these days, but she returns to Newfoundland for a series of performances in St. John’s and Twillingate between August 1 and 10.
She wrote Nightingale of the North during the pandemic, influenced by the experience of co-authoring The Heart’s Obsession with her father, a historian. “I dreamed of her taking my hand,” she relates in a statement. “That dream felt like a passing of the torch. I’ve been holding it close ever since.”
MusicNL Award-winner Rozalind MacPhail plays alto flute on the track, with Jesse Fegelma on guitar.
Tonia holds a Bachelor of Voice Performance from the University of Western Ontario. She’s released several albums of her own music, and has performed across North America.
She’ll be appearing and performing in a series of events August 9 and 10 in Twillingate, including the public reveal of artist Sylvia Ficken’s formerly long-lost watercolour portraits of Georgina.
- August 9 – 11:00 a.m. – Twillingate Museum – Book Signing
- August 9 – 4:00 p.m. – St. Peter’s Church – 180th Anniversary Celebration with Hymns, Opera, and Beloved Music
- August 10 – 11:00 a.m. – St. Peter’s Cemetery – Flower Ceremony Honouring Georgina Stirling
- August 10 – 5:00 p.m. – Blue Barrel Gallery – Folk Favourites and More, with special guest Adam Baxter on guitar
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