page_title: Mary Garden
section_title: Departure from the Opéra-Comique and later career in the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Garden / Biography / Departure from the Opéra-Comique and later career in the United States
context_page_description: Mary Garden was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She spent the latter part of her childhood and youth in the United States and eventually became an American citizen, although she lived in France for many years and eventually retired to Scotland, where she died.
  Described as "the Sarah Bernhardt of opera", Garden was an exceptional actress as well as a talented singer. She was particularly admired for her nuanced performances which employed interesting uses of vocal color. Possessing a beautiful lyric voice that had a wide vocal range and considerable amount of flexibility, Garden first arose to success in Paris during the first decade of the 20th century. She became the leading soprano at the Opéra-Comique; notably portraying roles in several world premieres, including Mélisande in Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. She worked closely with Jules Massenet, in whose operas she excelled. Massenet notably wrote the title role in his opera Chérubin for her.
  In 1907, Oscar Hammerstein convinced Garden to join the Manhattan Opera House in New York where she became an immediate success.
context_section_description: Persuaded by Oscar Hammerstein to join his competition against the Metropolitan Opera, Garden quit her frequent Opéra-Comique engagements to join the Manhattan Opera House in New York City. She made her American debut in the Manhattan Opera House on 25 November 1907 in the title role in Thaïs, a role which fitted her personality and art like a glove. She further astounded American audiences with her uncanny portrayal of a young boy in Massenet's Le jongleur de Notre-Dame (1908) and in the United States premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande.
  In 1908 she returned to Paris to join the roster at the Opéra National de Paris. She sang there for one season, notably portraying Ophelia in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet (1908) and the title part in Henry Février's Monna Vanna (1909) among other roles. She also sang the role of Marguerite in Gounod's Faust (1909) in Brussels. Afterwards, Garden returned again to New York in 1909 to perform the title role in Richard Strauss's Salome. During the performance she lasciviously kissed the severed head of John the Baptist which shocked the morals of a number of the audience members even more than her Dance of the Seven Veils (which she performed in a bodystocking).
  By 1910, Garden had become a household name within America. She left the Manhattan Opera House to join the Chicago Grand Opera Company where she sang from 1910 to 1913 in such roles as Mélisande, Fanny in Massenet's Sapho, Dulcinée in Massenet's Don Quichotte, the Prince in Massenet's Cendrillon, the title role in Georges Bizet's Carmen, and the title role in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. During this time she also sang in other American cities, notably appearing in the world premiere of Victor Herbert's Natoma in Philadelphia on 25 February 1911 and in the title role Février's Monna Vanna in its United States premiere in Boston. In late April 1912 Garden along with Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera Company gave special concerts in which they raised $12,000(over quarter of a million in 2017) dollars for aid to survivors of the Titanic tragedy.
  Garden next sang with the Chicago Opera Association from 1915 until 1921 where she sang such roles as the title part in Massenet's Cléopâtre and the title part in the world premiere of Février's Gismonda (both 1919), and the role of Fiora in Montemezzi's L'amore dei tre re (1920) among many others. She notably became the director of the Chicago Opera Association in a notorious coup for the organization's final 1921–22 season.
  Although serving as director for only one year, she was responsible for producing the world première of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges. Also during this time she appeared in two silent films made by Samuel Goldwyn, the title role in a film version of Thais (1917) and the role of Dolores Fargis in The Splendid Sinner (1918). During World War I she was decorated by the French and Serbian governments and made a Chevalier (knight) of the Légion d'Honneur in 1921.
  In 1922 Garden became the director of the newly formed Chicago Civic Opera where she also performed roles until 1931. Among the many roles she performed with the Chicago Civic Opera are Charlotte in Massenet's Werther (1924), Katyusha in Franco Alfano's Risurrezione (1925, in French) and the heroine of Arthur Honegger's Judith (1927), the last two both United States premières. In 1930 she sang in the world premiere of Hamilton Forrest's Camille, an opera based on Dumas' The Lady of the Camellias. That same year she returned to the Opéra-Comique to appear in several operas. In 1931 Garden sang her last role with the Chicago Civic Opera, Carmen, after which the company went bankrupt.
  Garden retired from the opera stage in 1934, after making her last appearance as Katyusha in Franco Alfano's Risurrezione at the Opéra-Comique. After retiring, Garden worked as a talent scout for MGM and gave lectures and recitals, mostly on the life and works of Claude Debussy up through 1949. For much of her life she had openly encouraged young singers and even secretly paid for them to receive training. She continued to support young artist
caption: Mary Garden in the opera Thaïs
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