Marie van Zandt |

Marie van Zandt

Marie van Zandt (born Marie van Zandt; 1858-1919) was a Dutch-born American opera singer who possessed a “small but brilliantly crafted soprano” (Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary).

Maria Van Zandt was born on October 8, 1858 in New York City to Jennie van Zandt, famous for her work at La Scala Theater in Milan and the New York Academy of Music. It was in the family that the girl received her first music lessons, then training at the Milan Conservatory, where Francesco Lamperti became her vocal teacher.

Her debut took place in 1879 in Turin, Italy (as Zerlina in Don Giovanni). After a successful debut, Maria Van Zandt performed on the stage of the Theater Royal, Covent Garden. But in order to achieve real success at that time, it was necessary to make her debut in Paris, so Maria signed a contract with the Opera Comic and made her debut on the Paris stage on March 20, 1880 in the opera Mignon by Ambroise Thomas. Soon, especially for Maria van Zandt, Leo Delibes wrote the opera Lakme; premiered on April 14, 1883.

It was argued that “she is best suited for poetic roles: Ophelia, Juliet, Lakme, Mignon, Marguerite.”

Maria Van Zandt first visited Russia in 1885 and made her debut at the Mariinsky Theater in the opera Lakme. Since then, she has repeatedly visited Russia and has always sung with increasing success, the last time in 1891. Nadezhda Salina recalled:

“Various talent helped her to be embodied in any stage image: you had tears when you heard her prayer in the last scene of the opera “Mignon”; you laughed heartily when she attacked Bartolo as a capricious girl in The Barber of Seville and struck you with the fury of a tiger cub when she met a stranger in Lakma. It was a rich spiritual nature.”

On the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, Maria van Zandt made her debut as Amina in Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula on December 21, 1891.

In France, Van Zandt met and became friends with Massenet. She took part in home concerts held in Parisian aristocratic salons, for example, with Madame Lemaire, who visited Marcel Proust, Elisabeth Grefful, Reynaldo Ahn, Camille Saint-Saens.

Having married Count Mikhail Cherinov, Maria Van Zandt left the stage and lived in France. She died on December 31, 1919 in Cannes. She was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Illustration: Maria van Zandt. Portrait by Valentin Serov