Cléo de Mérode by Reutlinger via
Category Archives: Entertainers
Geneviève Lantelme (ca. 1900s)
Geneviève “Ginette” Lantelme (born 1883) was a French stage actress, socialite, fashion icon, and courtesan.
Geneviève Lantelme, ca. 1900s via
Vintage Portrait of Legendary Opera Singer Nellie Melba (1859-1931)
Dame Nellie Melba GBE (1861 – 1931) born Helen “Nellie” Porter Mitchell became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century. She was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician.
She was an operatic soprano. She sang at Richmond (Australia) Public Hall at the age of six and was also a skilled pianist and organist, but she did not study singing until after her marriage to Charles Nesbitt Armstrong in 1882, with whom she had a son named George. In the 1890s she had an affair with Philippe, Duke of Orleans, that led to scandal and eventually divorce.
After the brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. Failing to find engagements in London in 1886, she studied in Paris and soon made a great success there and in Brussels. Returning to London she quickly established herself as the leading lyric soprano at Covent Garden from 1888. She soon achieved further success in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, and later at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, debuting there in 1893. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten.
Melba continued to sing until the last months of her life and made a legendary number of “farewell” appearances. Her death, in Australia, was news across the English-speaking world, and her funeral was a major national event.
Drawing of the young Nellie Melba by Frank Haviland, published 1908 via
Jenny Lind CDV by Emilie Bieber (1860s)
Johanna Maria “Jenny” Lind (1820 – 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the “Swedish Nightingale”. One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of America beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
Jenny Lind by Emilie Bieber albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s © National Portrait Gallery, London via
Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt; Jenny Lind by Emilie Bieber albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s © National Portrait Gallery, London via
Gladys Cooper by Bassano (1912)
Gladys Cooper by Bassano, 1912 via
