Mary Garden

Until recently Mary Garden, who of all artists on the lyric stage, is the most nearly in touch with the singing of the future, has been treated as a charlatan and a fraud.

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

She becomes, indeed, so much a part of the character she assumes that the spectator finds great difficulty in dissociating her from that character, and I have found those who, having seen Mary Garden in only one part, were quite ready to generalize about her own personality from the impression they had received.

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

The fact of the matter is that when Mary Garden first came to New York only a few of us were ready to receive her at anywhere near her true worth.

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

It is not, I would insist, Mary Garden that has changed so much as we ourselves.

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

Mary Garden as Isolde, I think the public will thank me for having suggested it.

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

Mary Garden herself did not know, at the time she first sang

The Merry-Go-Round Carl Van Vechten 1922

Its fame soon reached America, and the first performance was given in New York in 1907, with a notable cast of singing actors, among whom Mary Garden, as the heroine gave an unforgettable, poetic interpretation.

The World's Great Men of Music Brower, Harriette 1922

Its fame soon reached America, and the first performance was given in New York in 1907, with a notable cast of singing actors, among whom Mary Garden, as the heroine gave an unforgettable, poetic interpretation.

The World's Great Men of Music Story-Lives of Master Musicians Harriette Brower 1898

Mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the grandfather of President Kennedy, was one of the very few non-Brahmin shareholders in the Boston Opera Company--but nevertheless chastised the young company for the enthusiasm with which Mary Garden and baritone Vanni Marcoux threw themselves into the luridness of "Tosca."

Boston.com Top Stories 2012

The legendary Mary Garden, the most formidable singing actress prior to Maria Callas, was a frequent headliner.

Boston.com Top Stories 2012