Marie Grisier-Montbazon, Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques, 1886, Photograph Atelier Nadar.
Marie Grisier-Montbazon (née Marie-Rose Livergne[1] (29 January 1859 − 18 October 1922), sometimes called Marie Montbazon, was a French actress and singer.
Marie Grisier-Montbazon (née Marie-Rose Livergne[1] (29 January 1859 − 18 October 1922), sometimes called Marie Montbazon, was a French actress and singer.
Born in Avignon, Montbazon was the daughter of Hippolyte Livergne, an actor known as Montbazon, and Emilie Hody, also an actress.[2]
She was a singer (mezzo-soprano) and operetta actress (a star of the operetta firmament! ) who had brilliant success in the theatre since she played the role of Bettina in the comic opera (in 3 acts) La Mascotte by Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in December 1880, for which the composer Edmond Audran, a fellow student of Ménager and Camille Saint-Saëns, had composed the music. Montbazon, throughout her career, always dragged behind her this role which she played eight hundred times in Paris, in the provinces or abroad and which was always demanded of her, on all stages, despite the precaution she took of specifying on her engagements that she would not play La Mascotte.
On all the stages where she appeared, Montbazon knew how to make herself appreciated in all the roles she played. In her role of Gillette, thanks to her well timbred mezzo voice, Montbazon was highly acclaimed and without being comparable to that of "La Mascotte", the success of Gillette de Narbonne[3] was real and if this opera, in our capital (Paris), has not been performed since 1935, it has remained for a long time in the repertoire of provincial theatres.
She died on 18 October 1922 at her home, 10 rue des Bons Enfants in Bois-Colombes at the age of 63.[4]
