page_title: Marie Sasse
section_title: Late career
hierarchical_section_title: Marie Sasse / Biography / Late career
caption_attribution_description: English: Belgian soprano Marie Sasse (1834-1907). [Note: The image has been modified from the original. It has been reversed left to right.]
context_page_description: Marie Constance Sasse [Sax, Saxe, Sass] was a Belgian operatic soprano. "Her voice was powerful, flexible, and appealing", and she was one of the leading sopranos at the Paris Opéra from 1860 to 1870. She created the roles of Elisabeth in the Paris premiere of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Sélika in the world premiere of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, and Elisabeth de Valois in the world premiere of Verdi's Don Carlos.
context_section_description: Other roles at the Opéra included Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet and Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (1868). She appeared at La Scala during the 1869–1870 season, but was back in Paris when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870. Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici was performed "with the 'Marseillaise' interpolated into the third act and sung by Mme Sass with far more conviction than she had ever brought to Verdi's Elisabeth." After the French defeat at Sedan, as Prussian troops began to approach Paris, plans were made to convert the nearly finished, but still unoccupied new opera house, the Palais Garnier, into an emergency hospital. Sasse decided to quit the Opéra and emigrated to Italy. She appeared in Saint Petersburg during the 1870–1871 season.
  In April 1871 Paul Draneht, the general manager of the Cairo Opera, negotiated with Sasse about the possibility of appearing as Amneris in the world premiere of Verdi's new opera Aida which was to be performed in Cairo later that year. He wrote about this to Verdi, who then wrote to Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, the theatrical agent in Milan: "I have no use for her – either as Amneris, who is a mezzo-soprano, or as Aida, for other reasons." Draneht visited Verdi at his home in Sant' Agata in May, where they discussed her further. Draneht, having been unaware of Verdi's opposition, had already signed her to sing Amneris. Verdi was adamantly opposed, not only because the part was too low, but because "I know from experience that it is in the interest of both the management and the composer to give her operas in which she is the only soprano, or at least an opera which has no other role equal or superior to hers."
  Draneht was in a bad position: the opera was completely cast, and, as the artist's fees had been exceptionally high, the budget for singers had been expended. In order to hire another singer for the role, Draneht would need the approval of the Viceroy of Egypt. The Viceroy, who had hired Italian architects to build the Cairo Opera House in six months in 1869, was underwriting the entire cost of the Aida production. His tendency to spend lavish amounts of money on inessential projects was later to drive Egypt into bankruptcy. Draneht tried to persuade Verdi that the mezzo-soprano Eleonora Grossi, who was already under contract with the company, would be able to sing the role, but Verdi resisted. Eventually Verdi received good reports about Grossi from other sources and relented.
  W. E. Haslam, in his 1911 book Style in Singing, relates that Marie Sasse later stated that she had tried to prepare the role of Aida for the Cairo production, but found that at certain points the part was too high for her range. "As she was compelled by her contract to sing the opera, she asked Verdi to make some slight changes to bring the music within her reach. But he refused absolutely to make the least alteration." In speaking of it she said: "'Why should Verdi have shown himself more unreasonable or less yielding than Meyerbeer or Wagner?' (plus intransigent, plus intraitable que Meyerbeer ou Wagner?)."
  During the course of her career Sasse had also sung the title role in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and appeared in Brussels, Madrid, and Barcelona. She retired from the stage in 1877 at the age of forty-three, tried to make a living teaching voice, and in 1902 published her memoirs under the title Souvenirs d'une artiste (Recollections of an artist). She died in Paris in "abject poverty" at the age of 73.
caption: Marie Sasse by Paul Maurou (1881)
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