Yvonne Brothier was a soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic singer who worked principally at the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

After singing in Brussels in 1914, she made her début at the Opéra-comique on 13 February 1916 in Lakmé

Lakmé

Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...

by Delibes. She went on to create roles in Louis Aubert

Louis Aubert

Louis François Marie Aubert was a French composer.-Biography:Louis Aubert was a child prodigy. His parents, recognizing their son's musical talent, sent him to Paris to receive an education at an early age...

's La forêt bleue (Red Riding Hood) (French premiere), Graziella (title role), Marcel Samuel-Rousseau

Marcel Samuel-Rousseau

Marcel Samuel-Rousseau was a French composer, organist, and opera director. He studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1905. He was the organist at Saint-Séverin from 1919–1922 and president of the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique...

's Le Hulla (Dilara), Raoul Laparra's Le joueur de viole (the young girl), Fauré

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

's Masques et Bergamasques, Charles-Henri Maréchal's Ping-Sin (title role) and Sylvio Lazzari

Sylvio Lazzari

Sylvio Lazzari was a French composer of Austrian origin.-Life:...

's Le sauteriot (Orti).

Her repertoire at the Opéra-Comique also included Rosina (The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

), Micaëla (Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

), Olympia (Les contes d'Hoffmann

Les contes d'Hoffmann

Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...

), Melisande (Pelléas et Mélisande), Mireille, Rosenn (Le roi d'Ys

Le roi d'Ys

is an opera in three acts and five tableaux by the French composer Édouard Lalo, to a libretto by Édouard Blau, based on the old Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys, which was, according to the legend, the capital of the kingdom of Cornouaille. It premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris on 7...

), Minka (Le roi malgré lui

Le roi malgré lui

Le roi malgré lui is an opéra-comique in three acts by Emmanuel Chabrier with an original libretto by Emile de Najac and Paul Burani. The opera is revived occasionally, but has not found a place in the repertory, mainly because of the poor libretto...

) and Zaire (Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet consisting of a prologue and four entrées by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier...

).

On 26 November 1921, Yvonne Brothier sang the la Marseillaise

La Marseillaise

"La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song, originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795...

 and airs from Mireille and The Barber of Seville over the radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 from the Sainte-Assise transmitter

Transmitter

In electronics and telecommunications a transmitter or radio transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the antenna. When excited by this alternating...

. Her voice reached the rooms of the Lutetia

Hôtel Lutetia

The Hôtel Lutetia, located at 45 Boulevard Raspail, in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of the 6th Arrondissement of Paris, is one of the best-known hotels on the Left Bank...

 forty kilometres away in Paris..

Brothier appeared at the Paris Opera in 1931 in the first performance of Virginie by Alfred Bruneau, later singing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and Rosine in The Barber of Seville (both in French). She also sang in Amsterdam, La Scala and in Spain and north Africa.

She retired in 1940 and devoted herself to teaching.

Recordings

Brothier sang Micaëla in the complete recording of Carmen conducted by Piero Coppola, and an abridged Pelléas et Mélisande (1927), as well as individual items from roles she sang on stage.

External links

from Hérold's Le Pré aux clercs

Le Pré aux clercs

Le pré aux clercs is an opéra comique in three acts by Ferdinand Hérold with a libretto by François-Antoine-Eugène de Planard based on Prosper Mérimée's Chronique du temps de Charles IX of 1829.-Performance history:...

. (Note there is a long introduction for violin and orchestra before the voice enters at 2'40".)