Galli-Marie, Celestine

1840-1905

French mezzosoprano, was the daughter of a singer at the Paris Opera, who was her teacher as well as father. She made her debut at Strasburg in 1859. After appearing in Italian Opera at  Lisbon in 1861, she returned to Paris, and was engaged there at the Opera Comique most of the time from 1862 to 1885, though appearing at intervals in other parts of France, Italy and Belgium. She created the parts of Mignon and Carmen, winning international fame, and is said to have sung in more than twenty operas from 1862 to 1878, and to have appeared as Carmen at the age of fifty with a cast including Melba as Michaela and Jean De Reszke as Don Jose. She died at Venice, near Nice. Her marked success is attributed rather to her dramatic talent and great versatility in assuming parts of widely varying character, than to her voice, which seems to have been of no unusual quality.

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