| Elisa Frandin | |
| Other Names: | Lison Frandin, Elisabeta Combi |
| Birth Name: | Elisabeth Frandin |
| Birth Date: | 7 April 1859 |
| Birth Place: | Helsinki |
| Death Place: | Milan |
| Occupation: | Opera singer, voice teacher |
Elisa Frandin (7 April 1865[1] – 24 January 1911) was a Finnish-French opera singer.
Elisabeth Frandin was born in Helsinki, the daughter of Joseph-Hippolyte-Eugène Frandin and Pauline Lemagne. Her parents were French; her father was the French consul in Helsinki when she was born. Her older brother Joseph-Hippolyte Frandin (1852–1926), was a French diplomat in China, Korea, Colombia, and Ecuador.[2] [3]
Elisa Frandin studied voice at the Conservatoire de Paris with Joseph-Théodore-Désiré Barbot and Louis-Henri Obin. She won several awards as a Conservatoire student.
Frandin, who sang soprano and mezzo-soprano parts, made her professional debut in Paris in 1881, in Grissart's Les Poupées de l'Infante. Frandin sang in operas in Cairo, Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Berlin, and many Italian cities. Her repertoire included roles in Lakmé by Delibes (1883),[4] Bizet's Carmen,[5] Verdi's Aida, Maillart's Les dragons de Villars, Auber's Le Domino Noir, Boito's Mefistofele, Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Massenet's Werther and La Navarraise (1895–1896),[6] [7] and Leoncavallo's La bohème (1897).[8] [9] She and Marie van Zandt were the first to sing the well-known Flower Duet from Lakmé, in Paris in 1883.[10]
Frandin survived a train accident in 1893, but lost all her theatrical luggage, including costumes and jewelry; she was compensated with ₤500,000 by the railway company. She retired from the stage when she married in 1897, and opened a music school in Milan.[11] [12]
Frandin married Italian journalist Carlo Combi in 1897. They had a son, Mario Combi, born in 1898. She died in 1911, aged 51 years, in Milan.
"The year 1865 of the 25th of April from my Chaplain of the troops placed in Finland, priest Father Ignazio Gorbatini (?) was baptized with all the ceremonies of the sacrament the little girl with the name of Elizabeth, daughter of the French consul Ippolito Frandin and his wife Polina nee Letagnian, legally married, born in Helsingfors on the 7th of the same month of April. Godparents were Arman de Borbone del Vilfer and Elisabetta Augusta Gutorinel de Perra. Also present were Pietre Devine and Adelaide Liten. The Imperial Consulate of Russia in Venice certifies the accuracy of this translation from Russian and French into Italian of the original faith.