Yvonne Brothier

Who was Yvonne Brothier?

Yvonne Brothier was a soprano operatic singer who worked principally at the Opéra-Comique, Paris.

After singing in Brussels in 1914, she made her début at the Opéra-comique on 13 February 1916 in Lakmé by Delibes. She went on to create roles in Louis Aubert's La forêt bleue, Graziella, Marcel Samuel-Rousseau's Le Hulla, Raoul Laparra's Le joueur de viole, Fauré's Masques et Bergamasques, Charles-Henri Maréchal's Ping-Sin and Sylvio Lazzari's Le sauteriot.

Her repertoire at the Opéra-Comique also included Rosina, Micaëla, Olympia, Melisande, Mireille, Rosenn, Minka and Zaire.

On 26 November 1921, Yvonne Brothier sang the la Marseillaise and airs from Mireille and The Barber of Seville over the radio from the Sainte-Assise transmitter. Her voice reached the rooms of the Lutetia forty kilometres away in Paris.

Brothier appeared at the Paris Opera in 1931 in the first performance of Virginie by Alfred Bruneau, later singing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and Rosine in The Barber of Seville. She also sang in Amsterdam, La Scala and in Spain and north Africa.