Jeanne Maubourg

Jeanne Maubourg was born Jeanne Elisabeth Goffaux in Namur,^[1] the daughter of Alexis Hippolyte Goffaux, a musical conductor, and Marie Anne Nottet. (Her birth record gives 1873 as the date;^[2] most secondary sources give 1875 as the year.)

Maubourg, a mezzo-soprano, began her opera career at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in 1897. She performed at London's Covent Garden for four seasons beginning in 1900.^[3] She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera from 1909 to 1914.^[4] She was in the cast when Arturo Toscanini conducted the American premiere of Gluck's Armide in 1910, sharing the stage with Enrico Caruso, Olive Fremstad, Louise Homer and Alma Gluck. She was also in the American premieres of Le donne curiose in 1912 and Boris Gudonov in 1913, both under Toscanini's baton. Her "large repertoire"^[5] also included roles in La Périchole, La bohème, Cavalleria rusticana, Carmen, Hansel and Gretel.^[6] Faust, Tales of Hoffmann, Coppélia, Falstaff,^[4] Manon Lescaut, Otello, La traviata, and Rigoletto.^[7] She sang in an operetta on Broadway, The Lilac Domino (1914–1915).^[8][9] She had a reputation for being an intelligent and good-natured performer.^[10]

In 1915 she joined the Chicago Opera for a year, and in 1916 she performed in Montreal, in Gillette de Narbonne. She stayed in Montreal, and she was a member of the Canadian Operetta Society from 1923. Maubourg taught voice students in Montreal,^[11] counting among her students Pierrette Alarie,^[12] Fleurette Beauchamp-Huppé, Estelle Mauffette, and Monique Leyrac.^[13] Film appearances by Maubourg included a role in Le Pére Chopin (1945). She hosted a program on Radio Canada,^[13] and acted in the longrunning radio dramas La Pension Velder (1938–1942) and Métropole (1943–1956).^[6]