A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Galli-Marié, Celestine
GALLI-MARIÉ, Celestine, born Nov. 1840 in Paris, was taught singing by her father, Mécène Marié de l'Isle, formerly a singer at the Paris Opera under the name Marié. In 1859 she made her début at Strasburg, and next sang in Italian at Lisbon. About this time she married a sculptor named Galli, who died soon after in 1861. In April 1862, on the production in France of the 'Bohemian Girl,' she attracted the attention of the late Émile Perrin by her performance of the Gipsy Queen, and obtained from him an engagement at the Opéra Comique, of which he was then director. Here she made her début Aug. 12 in 'La Serva Padrona,' revived for the first time for a hundred years. She made a great success in this, and in a revival of Grisar's 'Les Amours du Diable' (1863), since which time she has remained at that theatre to the present time, with the exception of engagements in the provinces, in Italy, Belgium, and elsewhere. Among the operas in which she has appeared may be named:—March 24, 1864, 'Lara' (Maillart); Dec. 29, 1864, 'Capitaine Henriot' (Gevaert); Feb. 5, Massé's 'Fior d'Aliza,' and Nov. 17, 1866, 'Mignon'; Nov. 23, 1867, 'Robinson Crusoé,' and Jan. 18, 1872, 'Fantasio' (Offenbach); April 24, 1872, Paladilhe's 'Passant,' at Chollet's farewell benefit; Nov. 30, 1872, Massenet's 'Don César'; March 3, 1875, 'Carmen'; April 11, 1876, Guiraud's 'Piccolino'; Oct. 31, 1877, Poise's 'Surprise de l'Amour,' etc., and in revivals of Hérold's 'Marie,' Grisar's 'Les Porcherons,' Mireille,' singing the parts of Taven and Andrelun, and as the heroine Rose Friquet in Maillart's 'Dragons de Villars.' As Mignon and Carmen she has earned for herself world-wide celebrity. In 1886 she played with a French company for a few nights at Her Majesty's Theatre as Carmen, in which she made her début Nov. 8, and as the Gipsy in 'Rigoletto.' She was well received, but would doubtless have appeared to greater advantage with the support of a better company.
'Mme. Galli-Marié should take rank with those numerous artists who, although endowed only with no great voice, have for a century past rendered to this theatre services made remarkable by their talent for acting and their incontestable worth from a dramatic point of view. ... Equally capable of exciting laughter or of provoking tears, endowed with an artistic temperament of great originality ... which has permitted of her making out of parts confided to her distinct types ... in which she has represented personages whose nature and characteristics are essentially opposed one to the other' (Pougin).