Voice: | Soprano |
Nationality: | American |
Year of Birth: | Not entered yet. |
Year of Death: | 1953 |
Suzanne Adams (28 November 1872 – 5 February 1953) was an American lyric coloratura soprano. Known for her agile and pure voice, Adams first became well known in France before establishing herself as one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Adams was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 28 November 1872.
She studied in Manhattan, New York City with Jacques Bouhy and then in Paris with Mathilde Marchesi. She made her début at the Paris Opéra in 1894 or 1895 in Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. She studied the roles of Juliette and Marguerite from Faust with Gounod himself, who greatly admired her fine technique, brilliant tone, and vocal flexibility.
Adams remained at the Paris Opera for three years and then went to Nice. While in France she sang numerous roles by Gounod and Meyerbeer, as well as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute and the title role in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. During the summer of 1898, she appeared at Covent Garden in London as Hero in the world premiere of C. V. Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing. In the autumn of 1898, Adams joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York City where she sang numerous roles until 1903. Her roles at the Met included Juliette, Marguerite, Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots, Micaela in Carmen, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Philine in Mignon, Berthe in Le prophète, the Forest Bird in Siegfried, Nedda in Pagliacci, Gilda in Rigoletto, Infanta in Le Cid, Inès in L'Africaine, and Mimì in La bohème among others.