Known as “The Croatian Nightingale”, Ilma de Murska was an acclaimed 19th-century soprano opera singer. Her musical style was uninhibited and unrestrained – as she tended to depart from the score in fantastic improvisations, conductors would have to hold back the orchestra’s crescendo until she was ready. The fact that she could get away with this – to lead rather than follow – spoke to the power of her popularity and skill, further endearing her to her audiences.
Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque, who also starred in several early films, from 1919 to 1936. Onstage, she usually dressed in bright yellow with long gloves, standing almost perfectly still, gesturing with her long arms as she sang. Ahead of her time, she favored monologue-style “patter songs” and was frequently billed as a “diseuse” or “sayer”. The lyrics (often her own) were raunchy, and delved into subjects like tragedy, lost love, and the Parisian poverty of her childhood. Guilbert broke and reinvented the rules of music hall performance with her audacious lyrics, and the audiences loved her. She was acclaimed in France, England, and the United Statesin the early 1900s for her songs and imitations of France’s common people.
French actress and singer Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois made her debut as Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris in 1895 and went on to appear in venues like the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. With risqué routines that captivated Paris, she would become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest-paid female entertainer in the world, known for her flamboyance and flair for the theatrical. In 1919 her legs were insured for 500,000 francs.
She first recorded her signature song, “Mon Homme”, in 1916; it was subsequently popularised under its English title “My Man” by Fanny Brice and has become a standard in the repertoire of numerous pop and jazz singers.