Marie Delna

[1] Born Marie Ledant to a working-class family in the Marais area of the French capital, she was orphaned aged 15 months, and she and her sister grew up first with her maternal grandmother in Longjumeau.

[4] Massenet chose her as his first Charlotte in Werther in Paris, in January 1893, and later that year she created Marceline in Bruneau's L'attaque du moulin.

[5] She sang Marion in Godard's La Vivandière many times in her career, from its 1895 French premiere at the Opéra-Comique and subsequent revivals there to a production at the Gaîté-Lyrique.

A revival of Falstaff in honour of Verdi's memory featured her as Quickly and she portrayed Fée Grignotte (the witch) in Hänsel und Gretel.

[6] During the First World War she sang widely in concerts for troops, then in November 1925 appeared in the premiere of Maurin des Maures by Léo Puget (Miss Rabasse) at the Folies-Dramatiques.

[2] Delna's first recordings of operatic excerpts were set down in London in 1903 (Le prophète, Carmen), swiftly followed by more in Paris with La Vivandière, Werther, Les Troyens.

In New York in 1910 and London 1913 Delna continued a traversal of her main stage roles, completing her discography in Paris in 1918 with songs by Claude Rohand.