Description

MARIE-LOUISE EDVINA (MONTREAL, 28 MAY, 1878 – LONDON, 13 NOVEMBER, 1948)

 

 

 

 

Her real name was Marie-Louise Martin. In 1901, she married Hon. Cecil Edwards and sang for several years in a traveling opera company. She then studied with Jean de Reszke in Paris from 1904 to 1908. She made her official debut in 1908 at London’s Covent Garden Opera as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust. Until 1914, she appeared regularly at this opera house, where she became very popular. At Covent Garden, she sang in the premieres of Thaïs by Massenet (1911), La Dubarry by Carmussi (1913), I gioielli della Madonna (The Jewels of the Madonna) by Wolf-Ferrari (1912), L’amore dei tre re by Montemezzi (1914), and Francesca da Rimini by Zandonai (1914).

In 1910, she appeared at the Monte Carlo Opera as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello. In 1911, she was a guest at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, and in the same year she sang Manon by Massenet at the Grand Opéra, Paris, returning there in 1916 as Massenet’s Thaïs and Gounod’s Marguerite.

In 1912, she joined the Boston Opera, where she was acclaimed as the title character in Charpentier’s Louise and as Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. With the Boston Opera company, she also sang Fiora in Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1914. She was engaged at the Chicago Opera from 1915 to 1917. In 1915, she made a single appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Tosca, alongside Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti.

After her first husband, Hon. Cecil Edwards, was killed in action during the First World War, she married Stuart Worthley in 1919. From 1919 to 1920, and again in 1924, she returned to Covent Garden, singing roles such as Massenet’s Manon and Thaïs, before turning to operetta. In 1926, she appeared in the musical comedy Hearts and Diamonds at the Strand Theatre in London.

She also performed in her native Canada, including in 1912 in Montreal as Charpentier’s Louise, and undertook a major concert tour there in 1916. In later years, she ran an antiques shop on the French Riviera. Only three recordings of her voice are known, issued by HMV in 1919 (opera and song recordings of works by Debussy and Duparc).

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

Louise (Charpentier) Depuis le jour 2-033071 Ho4087af HMV, London 1919-11-05

Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maisons (Debussy) 2-033072 Ho4084af HMV, London 1919-11-05

Phidylé (Duparc) 2-033085 Cc34-2 HMV, London 1921-04-02

Thaïs (Massenet) L’amour est une vertu rare 7-33038 Bb33-2 HMV, London 1921-04-02

Thaïs (Massenet) Qui te fait sisévère 7-33037 Bb32-2 HMV, London 1921-04-02

Tosca (Puccini) Vissi d’arte 2-053150 Ho4089af HMV, London 1919-11-05