Maggie Teyte

Dame Maggie Teyte, born Margaret Tate on 17 April 1888 in Wolverhampton, England, was an operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song who died in London on 26 May 1976 at the age of 88. One of ten children born to Jacob James Tate, a wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses, she grew up in a household where both parents were keen amateur musicians and opera enthusiasts. She attended St. Joseph's Convent School in Wolverhampton before her family relocated to London in 1898, where she studied at the Royal School of Music. She was the sister of composer James W. Tate and the sister-in-law of music-hall performer Lottie Collins, who married James in 1902.

Following her father's death in 1903, Teyte traveled to Paris the next year to study under the celebrated tenor Jean de Reszke. Her first public appearance in Paris came in 1906, when she sang Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni, both conducted by Reynaldo Hahn. Her professional debut took place on 1 February 1907 at the Opera House in Monte Carlo, where she performed Tyrcis in Myriame et Daphné alongside Paderewski. Finding that her surname was routinely mispronounced in France, she changed it from Tate to Teyte before joining the Opéra-Comique in Paris. There she was cast as Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, replacing the role's originator, Mary Garden. In preparation, she studied directly with Debussy, and she remains the only singer ever to have been accompanied by him on the piano with an orchestra in a public performance.

In 1910, Sir Thomas Beecham engaged Teyte for his London season, casting her as Cherubino, Mélisande, and Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Despite these early successes, she did not readily secure a foothold in the major opera houses and instead moved to the United States, performing with the Chicago Grand Opera Company from 1911 to 1914 and the Boston Opera Company from 1914 to 1917, with engagements in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Her Broadway career brought her to New York in 1918, when she created the title role in Henry Kimball Hadley's opera Bianca at Manhattan's Park Theater. During that same Broadway season she also appeared in Carmen, Fra Diavolo, and Mignon.

Returning to Britain in 1919, Teyte created the role of Lady Mary Carlisle in André Messager's operetta Monsieur Beaucaire at the Prince's Theatre. She married her second husband, Canadian millionaire Walter Sherwin Cottingham of the Berger Paint Company, in 1921 and entered a period of semi-retirement that lasted until 1930, when she returned to perform as Mélisande and in the title role of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Her first marriage, to French advocate Eugene de Plumon in 1909, had ended in divorce in 1915; her second marriage likewise ended in divorce, in 1931.

After a difficult period in which she performed music hall and variety at the Victoria Palace in London, Teyte's career was revitalized in 1936 when her recordings of Debussy songs accompanied by Alfred Cortot attracted widespread attention. That same year she sang at the Royal Opera House in Hansel and Gretel, as Eurydice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, and as Butterfly in Madama Butterfly. In 1938 and 1939 she broadcast performances of Massenet's Manon in English with Heddle Nash as des Grieux. During the Second World War she performed in a series of concerts sponsored by the French Committee of National Liberation, for which she received the Gold Cross of Lorraine for services to France.

Teyte made her first New York appearances in 1948, including a Town Hall recital and performances of Pelléas at the New York City Center Opera. She continued to record and perform in opera until 1951, when she made her final operatic appearance as Belinda opposite Kirsten Flagstad's Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the first Mermaid Theatre in London. Her final concert appearance took place at the Royal Festival Hall on 22 April 1956, after which she devoted her remaining years to teaching. In 1958 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and that same year her autobiography, Star on the Door, was published. The Musicians' Benevolent Fund honors her legacy through the Maggie Teyte Prize of £2,000, awarded alongside the Miriam Licette Scholarship of £3,000 to women singers under the age of 30.