Juliette Nesville

After a highly successful appearance in the Brussels production of Audran's Miss Helyett she was engaged by the English manager Charles Wyndham in 1891 to play the part in London.

[1] Her parents had strict religious views, and she was educated in convent schools, first in France and, from the age of about twelve to fifteen, in England, by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur at Clapham.

The composer heard several Conservatoire students sing it, including two future operatic stars, Lucienne Bréval and Lina Pacary, and recommended Nesville for the part.

[3] She requested and was given permission to leave the Conservatoire to create the title role in Paul Lacôme's opéra comique Ma mie Rosette at the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques, Paris, on 4 February 1890.

[4] Nesville's success in Paris led the director of the Théâtre Royal des Galeries in Brussels to engage her to play the title role in Audran's Miss Helyett.

[14] In 1894 Nesville appeared with the Gaiety Girl company in New York and then toured the US;[2] on her return to England she played her first non-musical role, Sally Lebrune, in Henry Arthur Jones's The Triumph of the Philistines, which George Alexander produced at the St James's Theatre in 1895.

[24] Back in London in September she created her last West End role, a French maid, in a new farce, The Elixir of Youth: "no more roguish, mischievous little cocquette has been seen for a long time on the stage than Miss Juliette Nesville's Suzette", commented The Era.

[25] In July 1900 Nesville was in Paris to play the role of the Prince in Ernest Gillet's opéra bouffe Mariage princier, when she was taken ill. She died a few days later, aged thirty, and was buried at Le Vesinet.