Arthur Pougin says of her: "Mme. Galli-Marié should take rank with those numerous artists who, although endowed with no great voice, have for a century past rendered to this theatre services made remarkable by their talent for acting and their incontestable worth from a dramatic point of view.... Equally capable of exciting laughter or of provoking tears, endowed with an artistic temperament of great originality ... which has permitted her making out of parts confided to her distinct types ... in which she has represented personages whose nature and characteristics are essentially opposed."... She died at Vence, near Nice, September 22, 1905.
Fräulein Ehnn seems to have been the second Carmen; as Vienna was the second city to produce Bizet's opera; the date was October 23, 1875. Brussels had the honour of being the third city; the date was February 8, 1876; Mlle. Maria Dérivis enacted the rôle of the gipsy here. Thereafter the opera made the grand tour of the world, and firmly established itself in the répertoire of the meanest singing theatres. Scarcely a singer but has at one time or other sung one of the rôles in this work. Sometimes it has been Micaela (Mme. Melba, among others, has sung this rôle); sometimes Frasquita, in which Emma Trentini made an instantaneous impression in New York, more often than not Carmen herself, for contraltos and sopranos have both appeared in the part.
Adèle Isaac, a soprano, sang the part when Carmen was revived at the Opéra-Comique in 1883. She did not make a very good impression but the opera was received much more favourably than it had been in 1875. When Mme. Galli-Marié reappeared she was again deemed matchless. Then came Mme. Nardi. About 1888 Mme. Deschamps-Jehin sang the rôle. Mme. Tarquini d'Or succeeded her. In December, 1892, Mme. Calvé disclosed her characterization. It has been the custom in America to signalize a vast distinction between her early and late performances of the rôle; it has been said that she became self-conscious and wayward. Paris always found her so, but it must be remembered that tradition must be followed in the French theatre. Charles Darcourt's criticism in "Le Figaro" the next morning is enough to give a Parisian impression: He reproached her "d'être allée trop loin dans ses gestes et ses attitudes, d'avoir été trop peu comme il faut, d'être sorti des limites du bon goût et surtout du bon ton."... Mlle. Charlotte Wyns sang Carmen in 1894. Mme. Nina Pack, Mme. de Nuovina and Mme. Marie Brema followed her. In 1898 came Georgette Leblanc, who subsequently became the wife of Maurice Maeterlinck. Mlle. Leblanc's interpretation was a new one and she inspired one critic (Fierens-Gevaert) to put on paper the following ecstatic lines about her appearance in the second act:
"Mlle. Leblanc is clothed in a long robe of plaited tulle, ornamented with spangles. Her body, finely proportioned, is revealed by this indiscreet drapery. Her nobly modelled shoulders and arms are bare. Her hair is confined by three circles of gold, arranged in Grecian fashion. Alma, gipsy, daughter of the East, princess of the harem, Byzantine empress or Moorish dancer? All this is suggested by this fantastic and seductive costume. But a more ideal image pursues us. The singer is constantly urged by feminine visions of our ultra-modern poets. She finds absolute beauty in the exquisite body of a woman animated by a Florentine robe. And it is through this imaginary figure that she composes her other incarnations; and in a tavern where gipsy women meet soldiers, she evokes the apparition of a woman of Mantegna or Botticelli, degraded, vile, who gives the idea of a shameless creature that has not lost entirely the gracefulness of her original rank. She is never weary of cheapening her original model. She is sensual, impudent, voluptuous, gross, but in her white diction, in her blithe walk, you divine her desire of evoking something else.... Carmen is, according to Mlle. Leblanc, a hybrid, monstrous creature. You look upon her with eager curiosity and infinite sadness.... Mlle. Leblanc makes light of her voice. She maltreats it, threshes it, subjects it to inhuman inflections.... Her singing is not musical, her interpretation lacks the naïveté necessary to true dramatic power. Nevertheless, she is one of the most emotional interpreters of our period. Her limited abilities, hidden by a thousand details in accentuation, remind one of the weak and ornate poetry of artistic degeneration.... Thanks to her, Antioch and Alexandria, corrupt and adorable cities, live again, for an hour."
Perhaps Philip Hale's description of Carmen owes something to this picture of Mlle. Leblanc. At any rate it is striking enough to reproduce:
"Carmen lived years before she was known to Mérimée. She dies many deaths and many are her resurrections. When the world was young, they say her name was Lilith, and the serpent for her sake hated Adam. She perished that wild night when the heavens rained fire upon the cities of the plain. Samson knew her when she dwelt in the valley of Sorek. The mound builders saw her and fell at her feet. She disquieted the blameless men of Ethiopia. Years after she was the friend of Theodora. In the fifteenth century she was noticed in Sabbatic revels led by the four-horned goat. She was in Paris at the end of the last century and she wore powder and patches at the dinner given by the Marquis de Sade. In Spain she smoked cigarettes and wrecked the life of Don José."
Georgette Leblanc's successors were Mme. Delna, Zélie de Lussan, Marié de l'Isle (who sang Mercedes before she sang Carmen), Cécile Thévenet, Jenny Passama, Claire Friché, Marguerite Sylva, Mme. Lafargue, Mlle. Vix, Mlle. Brohly, Mlle. Charbonnel, Sigrid Arnoldson, Mlle. Mérentié, and Lucienne Bréval, whom Zuloaga painted twice in the part. One of these painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other belongs to Mme. Bréval. I have not seen Mme. Bréval in Carmen but I have seen her in other operas and I think I am safe in saying that Zuloaga's conception of her is more gipsy-like than her performance.... One of the latest of the Paris Carmens has been Mary Garden.
By permission of the Hispanic Society of America