Date of Birth: 14 September 1882 Birthplace: Paris, France Date of Death: 27 May 1946 Occupation: Opera Singer, Voice Teacher
Biography, by Martin Cooper: (b Paris, Sept 14, 1882; d Paris, May 27, 1946). Frenchmezzo-soprano. She made her début in Nancy in 1905 (in De Lara’s Messalina). The following year she began her long association with the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels (début as Delilah, 1906), where her wide repertory included Berlioz’s Dido, Clytemnestra in Iphigénie en Aulide and Strauss’s Elektra, Erda, Carmen, Donizetti’s Léonor, Charlotte and Fauré’s Penelope. At the Paris Opéra she appeared in 1908, as Delilah. At Rouché’s Théâtre des Arts in 1913she sang in the d’Indy editions of Poppea and Destouches’ Les éléments and an act of Gluck’s Orphée. She sang the title role in Gustave Doret’s La tisseuse d’orties at its first performance in 1927 at the Opéra-Comique, and in the first staged performance of Debussy’s La damoiselle élue in 1919 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville. From 1922 Croiza taught at the Ecole Normale and from 1934 at the Conservatoire; Micheau, Jansen, Maurane and Souzay were among her pupils. Her instinct for the French language and her intelligence, clarity of tone and passionate reserve caused her to be admired as much by poets as by musicians; in 1924 Paul Valéry hailed her as possessing ‘la voix la plus sensible de notre génération’. Among French composers Saint-Saëns, d’Indy and Fauré admired her unreservedly, and of the next generation Debussy and Roussel. Her silvery yet warm tone, and that ‘volupté du son’ based on pure, perfect utterance of the words, can be heard on her records."