Mary Garden

Mary Garden

Mary Garden (born February 20, 1874 in Aberdeen , † January 3, 1967 ibid) was a British opera singer ( soprano ). She was called the " Sarah Bernhardt of the Opera".

Life

Mary Garden was in the Scottish born and raised in Aberdeen Chicago , Illinois , on. She began to study singing at the Conservatory in Chicago at an early age, and later continued her studies in Paris .

Her first public appearance was in April 1900 as Louise in the premiere season of the opera Louise by Gustave Charpentier at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. In 1902 she sang Mélisande in the world premiere of Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande . It came to a "divenkrieg" between Mary Garden and Georgette Leblanc . Maurice Maeterlinck , the author of the literary model, had just married Leblanc and promised her the singing part of Mélisande.

In 1907 she made her US debut as Thaïs - as the most important actress of which she is still considered today - at the Metropolitan Opera . From 1910 to 1931 she was a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago - for a short time even its director. After 1935 she withdrew from the stage to limit herself to the concert hall and later to teaching.

Between 1903 and 1929 she made several successful sound recordings for Columbia Records and the Victor Talking Machine Company . She also advertised fashion , perfumes and cigarettes .

Filmography

• 1917 Thaïs
• 1918 The Splendid Sinner

literature

• Louis Biancolli, Mary Garden: Mary Garden's Story. Simon & Schuster, New York 1951
• JB Fletcher: Mary Garden. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London 1992, ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• Michael Turnbull: Mary Garden. Portland, Oregon 1997

Web links

Commons : Mary Garden  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mary Garden in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Mary Garden, Scottish-American soprano (English)
• The genesis of the opera