Johanna Maria dite Jenny Lind, despite a short career punctuated by vocal crises (she retired from the stage at just 29), left a great impression on her contemporaries.

Her admirers included not only artists such as Meyerbeer, Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz and Felix Mendelssohn, but also the crowned heads of European monarchies.

After her debut in her native country and a successful season in Vienna, Lind went to London in 1847, where she shone particularly brightly in the roles of Bellini, Meyerbeer and Donizetti.

Her operatic repertoire included the title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria di Rohan, Norma, La sonnambula and La vestale, as well as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Adina in L'elisir d'amore and Alice in Robert le diable. From that time on, she was known as "the Swedish nightingale".

After two triumphant seasons, devastated by the sudden and untimely death of her friend Felix Mendelssohn, Lind retired from the stage, but never stopped performing.

A great philanthropist, she donated all the proceeds from her American tour (a veritable fortune, in excess of $350,000 at the time) to charity, notably to the foundation of free schools in Sweden.