ALBANI, the stage name of Marie Louise Emma Cecile Lajeunesse (1847– ), Canadian singer, who was born at Chambly, in the province of Quebec, on the 27th of September 1847. She made her first public appearance in Montreal, at the age of seven, and afterwards studied in the United States, Paris and Italy. In 1870 she made her first appearance at Messina, and after two successful seasons appeared in London in 1872 with the Royal Italian Opera. Later she abandoned Opera for Oratorio, and sang at all the principal festivals. She has made several tours of Canada and of the United States, and in 1886 sang at the opening of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London the ode written by Tennyson for the occasion. She frequently sang before Queen Victoria, the German emperor and others of the crowned heads of Europe, and received numerous marks of their esteem. In 1897 she was awarded the gold Beethoven medal by the London Philharmonic Society, “as a mark of appreciation of her exceptional genius and musical attainments, and of her generous and artistic nature.” She married in 1878 Ernest Gye, the theatrical manager. Her stage name of Madame Albani was taken from that of an extinct Italian family.
See Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1898).