Jeanne Maubourg

Jeanne Maubourg, born Jeanne Elisabeth Goffaux on November 10, 1873, in Namur, Belgium, was a mezzo-soprano who built a distinguished career across opera houses in Europe and North America before appearing on Broadway. Her birth record gives 1873 as the year of her birth, though most secondary sources cite 1875. Her father, Alexis Hippolyte Goffaux, was a musical conductor, and her mother was Marie Anne Nottet.

Maubourg launched her operatic career at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in 1897, and from 1900 she performed at London's Covent Garden across four seasons. In 1909 she joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where she remained a member through 1914. During that period she took part in several significant American premieres, all conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In 1910 she appeared in the American premiere of Gluck's Armide alongside Enrico Caruso, Olive Fremstad, Louise Homer, and Alma Gluck. She was also in the casts of the American premieres of Le donne curiose in 1912 and Boris Godunov in 1913, both under Toscanini. Her repertoire extended across a wide range of works, including La Périchole, La bohème, Cavalleria rusticana, Carmen, Hansel and Gretel, Faust, Tales of Hoffmann, Coppélia, Falstaff, Manon Lescaut, Otello, La traviata, and Rigoletto.

In 1914 Maubourg appeared on Broadway in the musical The Lilac Domino, which ran into 1915. That same year she joined the Chicago Opera for one season. In 1916 she performed in Montreal in Gillette de Narbonne, and she subsequently settled in the city. By 1923 she was a member of the Canadian Operetta Society. Maubourg also taught voice in Montreal, and her students included Pierrette Alarie, Fleurette Beauchamp-Huppé, Estelle Mauffette, and Monique Leyrac.

Beyond the stage and the teaching studio, Maubourg was active in Canadian broadcasting. She hosted a program on Radio Canada and acted in the long-running radio dramas La Pension Velder, which aired from 1938 to 1942, and Métropole, which ran from 1943 to 1956. She also appeared on film, including a role in Le Père Chopin in 1945. Recordings of her voice from approximately 1917 and 1924 survive.

Maubourg married three times. Her first husband was French opera singer Claude Marie Bede Benedict, whom she married in 1911; they divorced in 1915. In 1918 she married Canadian conductor Albert Roberval, and in 1947 she married French actor Auguste Aramini. She died in Montreal in May 1953. A street in Montreal bears her name.