Mary Garden

That year marked the centenary of Debussy’s birth and the diamond jubilee of the opera. They continue to be reissued and are of much interest to connoisseurs of historical recordings—although Garden herself was said to have been generally disappointed with the results. Possessing a beautiful lyric voice that had a wide vocal range and considerable amount of flexibility Garden first arose to success in Paris during the first decade of the 20th century.

Although director for only one year Garden was notably responsible for staging the world premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges before the company went bankrupt in 1922. She also gave lectures and recitals mostly on the life and works of Claude Debussy until 1949. She became the leading soprano at the Opéra-Comique; notably portraying roles in several world premieres including Mélisande in Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902).