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(1)
Johanna Gadski [Emilia Agnes]:
German soprano (15 Jun 1872 - 22 Feb 1932): Debut Berlin (Kroll Opera) 1889 as
Undine. Damrosch Company, London CG, Met. Left America when her husband was
deported for his German connections. Bayreuth, Munich.
(2)
Italian baritone Carlo Galeffi
(1882-1961) as Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera. He created Fanuel in
Nerone, Manfredo in L'Amore dei tre Re, and the leading baritone
roles in Mascagni's Parisina and Isabeau. In addition to being a
great favorite in South America he was seen at La Scala from 1912 to 1938.
(3) French soprano Yvonne Gall
(1885-1972) as Marguerite in Faust. After studies at the Paris
Conservatory she made her debut (1908) as Mathilde in Guillaume Tell.
After several outstanding years in Paris she went to the Chicago Opera where she
impressed the critics with her effective acting, using meaningful gestures to
depict Tosca's emotions. She was married to the composer Henri Büsser, who wrote
Les Noces Corinthiennes for her. After her retirement she took a position at
the Paris Conservatory.
(4)
French operetta star
Germaine Gallois. Gallois was best known
for her role as Mlle Lange in La Fille de Mme Angot, which she presented
at the Paris Opéra on 28 Apr 1912 during a Gala performance.
(5) Canadian soprano Eva
Gauthier (1885 - 1958) devoted most of her career to the art song. Her first
concert appearance was in 1901, after which she traveled to Europe for further
study in London, Paris (with baritone Jacques Bouhy), Berlin (with Anna Schoene-Renée),
and then Milan (with Giuseppe Oxilia). After traveling throughout Europe and the
United States, introducing modern songs to her audiences, she settled in
Greenwich Village in NY. on 1 May 1917 the New York Times wrote, "Her
[Gauthier's] program was ambitious, beginning with airs by Gluck, RIcci, Haydn,
and Bishop, and the floral air M'odi from Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia.
She was nervous in the beginning and did not do herself justice. She was more
fortunate in French songs that followed, and a Malay Epic by Paul Seelig,
a cycle of three songs based on Malay folk tunes. Miss Gauthier's voice is not
without pleasing quality, brilliancy, and power; she also has a certain fluency
and facility in florid passage work .... Her style has not the finish of the
finest art, but her singing of songs by Frenchmen of today and the day before
yesterday gave pleasure because of her understanding of them and the appropriate
expression which she found for them."
(6) Scottish-American soprano Mary Garden
(1874-1967). In 1897 Garden and her singing instructor, Mrs. Robinson Duff,
traveled to Paris to seek a European musical education. She sang before several
of the most famous vocal coaches before finally settling with Fugère, although
she never was entirely satisfied with any of them. Before long, Garden's
financial backing was gone. According to Garden's own account she had a chance
meeting with Sibyl Sanderson, who commiserated with the hapless student and
invited her to stay at her Champs-Elysees apartment. Sanderson invited Albert
Carré, director of the Opéra-Comique, to her home for dinner in January of 1900
and Garden sang for him. On 13 April 1900, Garden stepped into a performance of
Louise midway through when the creator of the title role, Marthe Rioton,
took ill. The rest, of course, is history. Seen here as Aphrodite.
(7) Mary Garden as Manon.
(8)
Berta Gardini-Kirchhoff as Gilda in Rigoletto. Perhaps more
known as the first wife of conductor Fritz Reiner, with whom she had two
children, Tussy and Eva. They were divorced in 1929.
(9) Maria Gay:
Spanish mezzo (13 Jun 1879 - 20 Jul 1943): Discovered while singing in a
prison. She was arrested for singing a revolutionary song. Debut Brussels,
1902, Carmen. London CG, Met, Chicago. Married to tenor Giovanni Zenatello.
She and her husband discovered Lily Pons.
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(10) Elena Gerhardt
(Leipzig: 11 Nov 1883 - London: 11 Jan 1961): Mezzo-soprano. She entered the
Leipzig Conservatory at the age of sixteen. She gave her first recital in
Leipzig in 1903 with Arthur Nikisch as her accompanist. She sang with the
Leipzig Opera (1903-04) but gave up her stage career to devote herself
entirely to lieder singing. She was married to Fritz Kohl and emigrated to
London in 1933. She wrote a book of her memoirs called, Recital.
(11)
Jeanne
Gerville-Réache (26 Mar 1882 - 5 Jan 1915): French contralto. Studied in
Paris with Rosine Laborde and Pauline Viardot. Debut Paris Opéra-Comique
(1899), Orphée. Created Catherine (Le
Juif polonais) and Genevieve in Pelléas
et Mélisande. Also appeared at Covent
Garden, Manhattan Opera, Monnaie, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Montreal.
She died at the age of thirty-two from ptomaine poisoning.
(12) American dramatic soprano Dusolina
Giannini (Philadelphia: 19 Oct 1903 [also given as 19 Dec 1902] - Zurich:
29 Jun 1986). Daughter of Italian tenor Ferruccio Giannini (1868-1948) and the
pianist Antonietta Briglia-Giannini. She studied with her father and with
Marcella Sembrich. Her first performance was in a concert at Carnegie Hall
(1923). She made her stage debut at the Hamburg State Opera (1925) as Aida.
She appeared at the State Operas in Berlin, Vienna, and Hamburg. She also sang
at Covent Garden, the Salzburg Festivals, in Zurich, Monte Carlo, Oslo,
Brussels, Amsterdam, San Francisco, and Mexico City. She finally arrived at
the Metropolitan Opera in 1936, making her debut there as Aida, and remaining
there until 1941. While in the States she sang in San Francisco, Chicago, and
with the NY City Opera during their first season (1943, opening night Tosca).
After World War II she toured Europe again. Always on the move during her
stage career, she finally settled in Zurich where she taught.
(13)
Étienne Gibert:
Tenor. Paris Opéra debut as Vasco de Gama (6 Nov 1893) in L'Africaine.
At the Opéra
he also appeared in Lohengrin, Roméo et Juliette, and Tannhaüser.
Here he is as an expressive Canio (Paillasse).
Published by F.C. et Cie, number 526. This
is a lovely example of the work of photographer Henri Manuel.
(14) French-born baritone Eugenio
Giraldoni (1871-1924) was the son of two famous singers. His upbringing in
such musical surroundings served him well when he successfully created the
role of Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca (1900). He had a large and
expressive voice ideally suited to singing above the orchestra during the Act
I Te Deum.
(15) Girod
as Don José in Carmen.
(16) Norwegian tenor Gunnar Graarud (1
Jun 1886 - 6 Dec 1960). Graarud was trained in Berlin and made his operatic
debut (1919) in Kaiserslauten. He made his first Bayreuth appearance in 1927.
In 1930, as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, his performance resulted in
the following comment from Ernest Newman, "[Graarud] came so near to complete
loss of voice in the last act that probably Hagen saved his life by killing
him when he did." By 1933 Graarud had left Germany for political reasons. He
also sang at Mannheim, the Berlin Volksoper, Salzburg, Vienna, Covent Garden,
and had a good reputation in Scandinavia.
(17) French soprano Louise Grandjean
(1870-1934) had a reputation as a great interpreter of the Wagner roles. She
was hired immediately for the Opéra-Comique after very successful studies at
the Conservatoire National Superieur. Her debut (1893) was in Le Pre-aux-Clercs.
She was Alice Ford in the first French Falstaff (1894). Her Paris
Opéra debut (1895) was as the Page in Tannhäuser, and even in that role
she exhibited a sumptuous voice of dramatic timbre. During her tenure she
participated in the creation of Déjanire in Astarté, Phedre in
Ariane, Anita in La Catalane, and Nemorosa in La Foret. It
was at the Paris Opéra that she developed her reputation as a Wagnerian, which
began with her interpretation of Magdelaine in the first (1897) French
Maîtres-Chanteurs (Die Meistersingers). In 1904 she was honored by
receiving an invitation to Bayreuth to sing the role of Venus in Tannhäuser.
(18) Mizzi Günther:
Bohemian soprano (8 Feb 1879 - 18 Mar 1961). She made her debut (1897) in
Hermannstadt. In Vienna, she became the great operetta diva. She sang the
title role in the world premiere (30 Dec 1905: Theater au der Wien) of The
Merry Widow, and repeated her triumph in that role in London and Paris.
(19) Mizzi Günther.
(20)
A rare postcard of Romanian
tenor Trajan Grosevescu
(1894-1927) as Don Jose in Carmen. He began his career at the Bucharest
Opera. In 1924 he began a series of appearances in Vienna and Berlin. The
promising career of this artist was ended when, after an opera performance in
Vienna, he was fatally shot by his wife in a fit of jealous rage.
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