Marguerite Namara

Marguerite Namara (November 19, 1888 – November 5, 1974) was a classically trained American lyric soprano whose varied career included serious opera, Broadway musicals, film and theater roles, and vocal recitals, and who counted among her lifelong circle of friends and acquaintances many of the leading artistic figures of the first half of the twentieth century.

She was born as Marguerite Evelyn Cecilia Banks in Cleveland, Ohio, to a wealthy family with New England ties (she was descended on her father's side from Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullens and was a great-grandniece of Union General Nathaniel Prentice Banks, Governor of Massachusetts and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives).

Raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, she attended St. Vincent's School and Girls' Collegiate High School, studying piano and voice from an early age. As a teenager, she and her mother, who served as one of her early vocal coaches, made a recording for Thomas Edison, singing the Flower Duet from the Delibes opera, Lakmé.

At 18, Marguerite began studying at the Milan Conservatory, debuting a year later in 1908 as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust at the Teatro Politeamo in Genoa. She fashioned her stage name of Namara from her mother's maiden name, McNamara. From then on, she was referred to professionally as Madame Namara, and was called by family and friends as, simply, Namara. From 1910 to 1926, she sang with the Boston Opera Company, with the Chicago Opera Company (succeeding Mary Garden in Thaïs), with the Metropolitan Opera, and with Paris's Opéra-Comique. She sang lead roles in Cavalleria Rusticana, Manon, Carmen, Il trovatore, Tosca, La traviata and La bohème.

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