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It is said that Mme. Dugazon's performance of this role is actually terrifying, and that she spent several months in the insane asylums in Paris in order to study it. . .Mme. Marsan, at the Cap. . .played this role before my eyes in such a lifelike manner that it actually made me suffer. Permit me, Sir, to take advantage of this opportunity to do homage to that adorable actress. If she were at the Théâtre Italien, her name would be as famous as that of Dugazon, the elder Sainval, Contat, and others like them; for Mme. Marsan possesses in an eminent degree the talent for high comedy and for comic opera. Let anyone try to name an actress who can, like her, play in a single night, and with such perfection, "Elmire" in Tartuffe and the title role in La Servante Maîtresse, "Babet" and the "Gouvernante," "Rosalie" in Jenneval and "Clémentine" in Le Magnifique. [1]
In June 1793, Marsan was likely among the 10.000. refugees evacuated from Cap-Francais on American ships during the Great Fire and Pillage of Cap-Français. During the incident, most of the city was burnt and the white population took refuge in the ships of the harbour, and eyewitnesses describes scenes in which the rebels put on the costume from the Comédie du Cap. [2] Many of the actor of the theatre were to have been in New Orleans in 1794. [1]
In the 1795–96 season, Marsan is confirmed to have been in New Orleans as the leading actress and singer of the Théâtre de la Rue Saint Pierre in New Orleans. Marsan is believed to have sung the principal female part in Silvain – reputed to be the first opera ever performed in New Orleans – on 22 May 1796. [1] She was already famous for this role in Haiti. When the order of the theatre was established in the contract of 1797, she was among the actors granted benefit performances, and together with Clerville and Delaure, the highest-paid actor altogether with a salary of §70. [1]
When the theatre was closed in 1800, Marsan retired from the stage and lived on the income from a property bought for her by the actor Jean Baptiste Le Sueur Fontaine, director of the New Orleans theatre and previously director of the Cap-Francais theatre, where she was earlier employed. [1]
She died in New Orleans in 1807.
Saint-Domingue was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1697 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city on the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer specifically to the Spanish-held Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. The borders between the two were fluid and changed over time until they were finally solidified in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844.
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. However, the term also applied to people born free who were primarily of black African descent with little mixture. They were a distinct group of free people of color in the French colonies, including Louisiana and in settlements on Caribbean islands, such as Saint-Domingue (Haiti), St. Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. In these territories and major cities, particularly New Orleans, and those cities held by the Spanish, a substantial third class of primarily mixed-race, free people developed. These colonial societies classified mixed-race people in a variety of ways, generally related to visible features and to the proportion of African ancestry. Racial classifications were numerous in Latin America.
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children and, in some cases, gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803.
A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th- or 18th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. This article also contains information on French pidgin languages, contact languages that lack native speakers.
Louisiana Creoles are a Louisiana French ethnic group descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of both French and Spanish rule. They share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism.
Thimoléone-Rose-Caroline Chevalier Lavit, known by her married name as Alexandrine-Caroline (or Caroline or simply Mme) Branchu was a French opera soprano with origins from the free people of colour of Saint-Domingue where she was born at Cap-Français, the former French colony which is the modern-day Cap-Haïtien, Haiti. A gifted vocalist, for the better part of the first quarter of the 19th century, she was a leading soprano at the Paris Opéra.
Minette et Lise was a sister couple of two stage artists, active in Saint Domingue in Pre-revolutionary Haiti. They consisted of Elisabeth Alexandrine Louise Ferrand, stage name "Minette" and Lise. They have become known as Minette et Lise.
Theatre de la Rue Saint Pierre or Le Spectacle de la Rue Saint Pierre, was the first (French-speaking) theatre in New Orleans in Louisiana, active in 1792-1810. It opened in 1792 and was known to the Spanish-speaking citizens as El Coliseo and to the French-speaking citizens, La Salle Comedie. It was described as a small building of native lumber near the center of the city. It was located on the uptown side of St. Peter Street between Royal and Bourbon Streets, in what is now called the French Quarter.
Jean Baptiste Fontaine, né Le Sueur, was a French actor and theatre director. He was director of the theatre Comédie du Cap in Cap-Francais and an actor and newspaper editor in New Orleans. He was known under his stage name Fontaine.
Marguerite Brunet, known by her stage name of Mademoiselle Montansier, was a French actress and theatre director.
The Théâtre d'Orléans was the most important opera house in New Orleans in the first half of the 19th century. The company performed in French and gave the American premieres of many French operas. It was located on Orleans Street between Royal and Bourbon. The plans for the theatre were drawn up by Louis Tabary, a refugee from the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Construction began in 1806, but the opening was delayed until October 1815. After a fire, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1819, led by another émigré from Saint-Domingue, John Davis. Davis became one of the major figures in French theatre in New Orleans. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1866, but the ballroom is still used.
The Théâtre des Variétés-Amusantes was a theatre company in Paris.
The Saint-Domingue expedition was a large French military invasion sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, and curtail the measures of independence and abolition of slaves taken by the former slave Toussaint Louverture. It departed in December 1801 and, after initial success, ended in a French defeat at the Battle of Vertières and the departure of French troops in December 1803. The defeat forever ended Napoleon's dreams of a French empire in the West.
Comédie du Cap was a theater in Cap-Français in Saint-Domingue, active from 1740 to 1793; from 1764 as a public theater. It is regarded as a prototype for the theaters in Saint-Domingue, where theater was immensely popular.
Communauté des Religieuses Filles de Notre-Dame du Cap-Français was a convent in Cap-Français in Saint-Domingue, active from 1731 to 1793. It was a public institution which functioned as a refuge for women and a school for girls, presumable the only such institution in the colony.
Pauline Savari, was a French novelist, dramatist, journalist, stage actress, opera singer and feminist.
The Comédie de Port-au-Prince, also called Salle Mesplés, was a theater in Port-au-Prince in Saint-Domingue, active from 1778 to 1791.
Madame Acquaire also known as Mlle Babet, was a French stage actress and theatre director, active in Saint-Domingue.
Mlle Marthe, was a French stage actress and theatre director, active in Saint-Domingue.
Saint-Domingue Creoles or simply Creoles, were the people who lived in the French colony of Saint-Domingue prior to the Haitian Revolution.