Opera Scotland

Zélie De Lussan

Posted 25 Oct 2011

Zélie De Lussan was born in Brooklyn, NY of French parents, in 1861. She was best known for her performances as Carmen, a role that she is variously considered to have sung between five hundred and two thousand times. Her first appearance in Scotland was in that role at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, on November 12, 1889 and she continued to return until 1915. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1894 in Carmen.  Her range was impressive, including Mignon, Desdemona in Otello, Marie in The Daughter of the Regiment, Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Cherubino in Marriage of Figaro.  She sang regularly for the Carl Rosa Opera, and the Moody-Manners company too, touring Scotland many times. Find details of some of her main stage operatic performances in Scotland here. Then scroll down, click on the tours and learn more about the casts she performed with. The photograph is dated 1890 or so, and therefore shows her at about the same time as her first tour of Scotland. Does she look like a Carmen?