(1) Emma Abbott: American soprano (9 Dec 1850 - 5 Jan 1891): Debut London CG (1876) as Marie (La Fille du régiment). Married Eugene Wetherell (1875) and co-founded with him the Emma Abbott English Grand Opera Company.

(2) Aïno Ackté: French-trained Finnish soprano (1876-1944). After a series of hits and misses that failed to establish her talents, she finally achieved stardom in the title role of Strauss's Salome, (seen here) which was for a time the definitive interpretation.

(3) Suzanne Adams: American soprano (28 Nov 1872 - 5 Feb 1953): Studied in Paris with Bouhy and Marchesi. Debut Paris Opera (1895) as Juliette. Studied the role of Juliette with Gounod for her Covent Garden debut (1898). Created Hero in Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing (1904). Metropolitan Opera 1899-1903. married to cellist Leo Stein and retired from the stage upon his death in 1904.

(4) Mariska Aldrich, mezzo-soprano. Performed two seasons at the Metropolitan Opera, 1909 - 1911, mostly smaller roles such as Lola, Naoia (The Pipe of Desire), Fricka, Venus, and Azucena.

(5) Marie Brema [orig. Minny Fehrmann): English mezzo-soprano (28 Feb 1856 - 22 Mar 1925). Lola in first English Cavalleria Rusticana. Bayreuth (1894-7). Created Beatrice in Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing (London CG: 1901).

(6) Giuseppe Campanari: Italian baritone (17 Nov 1855 - 31 May 1927): Was originally a singer but after he lost his voice he became a cellist in the La Scala orchestra. In 1884 he came to America to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He tried his voice again with a traveling opera company in 1983. One year later he joined the Metropolitan Opera and sang there until 1912. He sang the Ford in Falstaff in the American premiere (1995) of the Verdi work.

(7) Giuseppe Campanari.

(8) Lloyd D'Aubigné: Tenor: Performed at the Metropolitan Opera during the 1894-1897 seasons. Faust, David (Meistersinger), Tybalt (Roméo et Juliette), Walther (Tannhäuser), Steersman (Tristan und Isolde).

(9) Boston born Bernice de Pasquali (1880-1925), originally Bernice James. She studied in Milan, and with Oscar Saenger in New York. She made her debut in Milan (1900) as Gilda in Rigoletto. She married Italian tenor Pietro de Pasquali who put together his own opera troupe, which included his wife as principal soprano. They toured the United States. Her Metropolitan Opera debut (1909) came when she replaced an ill Marcella Sembrich as Susanna in a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro. She remained at that House until 1917 as a principal coloratura soprano. For a performance of Aida (15 Jan 1910) she appeared as the Priestess under the pseudonym of Emma Laurier, a practice that singers applied when they chose not to have a billing.

(10) Marie Engle, American soprano. She was the granddaughter of a French singer, Marie Stoll. She began her musical studies at the age of fourteen. Mapleson heard her and asked her father if she could join his company on tour. She made her debut in San Francisco as Filina in Mignon. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut on 23 Nov 1895 as Micaela in Carmen (with Calvé and Maurel). Engle was particularly noted for a bird-like trill.

(11) Ernestine Schumann-Heink [orig. Ernestine Rossler]: German contralto (15 Jun 1861 - 17 Nov 1936): Stage debut (1878) as Azucena (Trovatore) with the Dresden Royal Opera. Kroll Opera, Hamburg Opera, London CG, Bayreuth, Met, Chicago, Created Klytemnestra (Elektra). Most famous contralto of her generation.

(12) Maria Gay: Spanish mezzo (13 Jun 1879 - 20 Jul 1943): Discovered while singing in a prison. She had been 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.

(13) Italian mezzo-soprano Eugenia Mantelli (1860-1926). She made her debut in 1883. She appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for six seasons. She was noted for her Urbain (Les Huguenots), Amneris (Aida), and Ortrud (Lohengrin). She toured with the English Grand Opera Company in the United States.

Mme. Eugenia Mantelli, who has for several seasons figured as the leading contralto in the Grau opera company, and who is to be married to Fernando Ernest de Angelis next Sunday, arrived in [New York] yesterday on the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm II. Mme. Mantelli’s marriage to Signor de Angelis, who is better known in the musical world as Prof. Ernest Damico, will take place at St. Agnes’s Church, on East Forty-third Street. After spending a few days in this city, they will visit Colorado, returning here to take their departure for Lisbon, where Mme. Mantelli will fill a professional engagement….

Mme. Mantelli is a native of Florence, and, during her engagement in this city with the Abbey-Grau Company three years ago, she received word of the death of her husband in Italy. New York Times, 21 Sep 1900.

(14) Victor Maurel: French baritone (17 Jun 1848 - 22 Oct 1923): Debut (1868) at the Paris Opéra. Performed in the world premiere (La Scala: 1870) of Il Guarany. Chosen by Verdi for the first Italian performance as Rosa in Don Carlos (1871). American premiere of Aida (Amonasro). Iago in the world premiere of Otello. Created the title role of Falstaff. Tonio in the world premiere of I Pagliacci. The premiere Italian baritone of his day. Seen here in Don Giovanni.

(15) Giacomo Puccini (Lucca: 22 Dec 1858 - Brussels: 29 Nov 1924): Italian composer: Edgar, Manon Lescaut, La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La fanciulla del West, Il Trittico, Turandot, etc.

(16) Lucienne Bréval [orig. Berthe Anges Lisette Schilling]: Swiss (later French) soprano (4 Nov 1869 - 15 Aug 1935): Debut Paris 1892 as Silika. Created roles of Grisélidis (Massenet), Ariane (Dukas), Pénélope (Fauré), and Lady Macbeth (Bloch). One of the greatest French sopranos of her day.

Jean De Reszke [orig. Jan Mieczyslaw]: Polish tenor (14 Jan 1850 - 3 Apr 1925): Debut as baritone (1874: Turin). Debut as tenor (1879: Madrid) as title role in Robert le Diable. Paris premiere John the Baptist (Hérodiade). World premiere Le Cid. Covent Garden, Met.

Edouard De Reszke [orig. Edward Mieczyslaw]: Polish bass (22 Dec 1853 - 25 May 1917): Debut Paris premiere of Aida (1876: Verdi conducting); Created Ruben (Il figliuol prodigo), Gilberto (Maria Tudor), the King (Elda). Returned to Poland and was there during war. Lived in poverty in a cellar and then a cave.

Milka Ternina: Austrian soprano (19 Dec 1863 - 18 May 1941). First English Tosca (Covent Garden: 1900), first NY Tosca (Met: 1900). Kundry in the first American performance of Parsifal (against the wishes of the Wagner family). She developed a "paralysis of the nerves of the eyes," which ended her career. Zinka Milanov was a pupil of hers.

(17) Ernst Van Dyck: Belgian tenor (2 Apr 1861 - 31 Aug 1923): Stage debut in Antwerp (1884). Lohengrin in the French premiere of that work. Very popular at Bayreuth as Lohengrin and Parsifal. Sang the title role on the world premiere of Werther (1892). He created for Paris Siegmund and Siegfried. Vienna Imperial Opera, London CG, Met, Brussels, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Bucharest.

Ernestine Schumann-Heink [orig. Ernestine Rossler]: German contralto (15 Jun 1861 - 17 Nov 1936): Stage debut (1878) as Azucena (Trovatore) with the Dresden Royal Opera. Kroll Opera, Hamburg Opera, London CG, Bayreuth, Met, Chicago, Created Klytemnestra (Elektra). Most famous contralto of her generation.

Andreas Dippel: German tenor/impresario (30 Nov 1866 - 12 May 1932): Debut Bremen (1887: Lionel in Martha). Had over 150 roles.

Margaret Macintyre: English soprano (1865 [India] - Apr 1943): Studied with Garcia. Debut London 1885 (St. George's Hall). London CG (1888-97). Created Rebecca in Sullivan's Ivanhoe (1891). First La Scala Sieglinde.

(18) Lillian Nordica: American soprano (12 May 1857 - 10 May 1914): St. Petersburg, London CG, Met, Milan, Manhattan Opera, Boston. Married Frederick A. Gower who was killed in a balloon accident. Married and separated from Hungarian tenor Zoltan Dome. Married for a third time to London banker George H. Young. During her 1913 farewell tour around the word and was shipwrecked off New Guinea. She was rescued, brought to a hospital in Batavia, Java and died there.

Lillian Nordica, who is a woman of brains as well as of voice, recently filled a page of one of the San Francisco papers with a plea for musical schools on a larger scale than anything we have yet had in this country….Nordica would like to see American conservatories, under private endowment …. Certainly she, Clara Louise Kellogg, Annie Louise Cary and several other American artists know as much about singing as any foreign teacher and far more about the requirements of opera singing as a whole than half the teachers anywhere. If some musical enthusiast could persuade some of our artists to take conservatory positions in this country, and then could induce American girls to stay at home and study with them, he would break up one of the most pernicious nuisances which afflict our girls ambitious for musical careers. Brooklyn Eagle; Nov 14, 1900.

(19) 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.

[Dame] Nellie Melba [orig. Helen Mitchell]: Australian soprano (19 May 1861 - 23 Feb 1931). Studied with Marchesi. Debut (1887) at the Brussels Opera as Gilda (Rigoletto). Created title role in Hélène at Monte Carlo. Covent Garden, La Scala, The Met, Paris Opéra, Chicago.

Andreas Dippel: German tenor/impresario (30 Nov 1866 - 12 May 1932): Debut Bremen (1887: Lionel in Martha). Performed over 150 roles.

(20) Sophie Traubmann: American soprano (12 May 1867 - 16 Aug 1951): Coached by Marchesi, Viardot, and Cosima Wagner for Wagnerian roles. She secured a scholarship at the National School of Opera after she gave a concert, at the age of eighteen, in old Steinway Hall in New York. She made her debut with that company at the NY Academy of Music as Venus. First American Woglinde, and Margiana (Barbier von Bagdad). She appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for three seasons beginning in 1887-88. She also sang in Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Altona, Covent Garden, and Hamburg.

They still keep saying that Sophie Traubmann is 21 years old. She was about of that age when she was in the National Opera Company in 1886. She is promising, though, and when she is 22 she may be a great singer. Brooklyn Eagle 19 Jan 1890.

(21) Dutch baritone Anton van Rooy (1870-1932). He made his debut as Wotan at the 1897 Bayreuth Festival at the insistence of Cosima Wagner. His commanding appearance and his beautiful upper register created an immediate impression. In 1898 he joined the Metropolitan Opera, where he sang his Wotan fifty times during his nine seasons there.

(22) Anton van Rooy seen here as Wotan.

(23) 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.

(24) Enrico Caruso as the Duke in Rigoletto. Caruso made his Metropolitan Opera debut in this role on 23 Nov 1903. He went on to appear in 38 other operas, and 861 performances with that company. The New York Tribune's Henry Krehbiel wrote, "Rigoletto is not a tenor's opera . . . but Signor Caruso, the newcomer, di what he could to make it so. He was musically the finest Duke that New York has heard for a generation. . . . That 'La Donna e Mobile' was permitted to pass with but a single repetition was due to the apathy of the audience. He had a gratifying reception in the first act, however, though the honors of the evening went in greatest measure to Mme. Sembrich and Signor Scotti."

(25) Enrico Caruso as the Duke in Rigoletto.