(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.

(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 sopranoLouise 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.

(21) Trajan Grosevescu.

(22) German tenor Wilhelm Grüning (1858-1942) in Rienzi. He made his debut (1881) in Danzig. He spent most of his career at the Hannover Opera and the Berlin Imperial Opera. At the latter he sang in the unsuccessful world premiere of Der Roland von Berlin.

(23) German tenor Wilhelm Grüning (1858-1942) in Robert der Teufel.

(24) American bass-baritone Putnam Griswold (1874-1914) studied with Alberto Randegger in London and Jacques Bouhy in Paris. He made his operatic debut (1901) at Covent Garden as Renato in the premiere of Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing. Although he made regular appearances in London, his longest contract was with the Royal Opera in Berlin (1906-1911) where he was considered one of the greatest foreign interpreters of the Wagner bass roles. In 1911 he toured several German cities before sailing to New York to make his Metropolitan Opera debut (23 Nov 1911) as Hagen in Götterdämmerung. He sang in the world premiere of Walter Damrosch's Cyrano de Bergerac (1913). He remained at the Metropolitan for three seasons. His last performance there (8 Feb 1914) was a Wagner concert twenty days before his death. He died during an appendicitis operation. Seen here as Escamillo in Carmen.

(25) Edoardo Garbin (1865-1943): Italian tenor. Garbin made his debut (1891) as Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino, in Vicenza. He appeared in several world premieres besides Zazà, including the roles of Fenton in Verdi's Falstaff, Guevara in Franchetti's Cristoforo Colombo, and Montemezzi's Giovanni Gallurese.