Opera Singer. A contralto, she is remembered for her leading performances in a number of major venues around the dawn of the 20th century. Born Marie Ledant, she was the child of a working class family, but was orphaned while still a toddler and was raised by a grandmother who saw her talent and arranged for voice lessons with a certain Rosine Labordo. After a number of public concerts she was spotted by the director of the Opera-Comique where she was given her stage name and made her 1893 operatic bow as Didon from Hector Berlioz' "The Trojans". Marie was soon heard as Charlotte in Massenet's "Werther" and as Dame Quickly of Verdi's "Falstaff", made her 1894 Covent Garden debut in Bruneau's now-forgotten "L'attaque du Moulin", in 1897 was first heard in Italy at Milan's Teatro Lirico, also in 1897 bowed at the Paris Opera in as Fides from Meyerbeer's "Le Prophete", continued her Opera-Comique career in such roles as Orphee in the Berlioz-Viardot verson of Gluck's masterpiece, the Witch in Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel und Gretel", Leonora from Donizetti's "La Favorita", Margred of Lalo's Le roi d'Ys", Zerlina in Mozart's "Don Giovanni", as well as several now obscure works, and gradually assumed her two signature pieces, the title leads of Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" and Bizet's "Carmen". Following her 1903 marriage to the Marquis Prier de Saone, a rich Belgian fan, she left the stage, but returned three years later and continued appearing in such theaters as Covent Garden, Brussels' La Monnaie, and La Scala Milano. Marie's January 29, 1910 Metropolitan Opera bow as Orfeo of Gluck's "Orfeo et Euridice" was, owing to her problems with Toscanini, essentially a flop and she was by then in vocal decline anyway; during World War I she kept busy entertaining the troops and afterwards continued to make occasional appearances, being heard in operetta as late as 1925. Though she sold her mansion and bought a smaller house in 1926, the urban legend that she died broke and was buried at government expense is, at the very least, an exaggeration. Her recorded legacy, which dates from 1903 to the pre-War years, is preserved on CD.