Jeanne Gerville-Réache was born in Orthez, in the south of France, into
a wealthy and politically well connected family. She spent a part of her
childhood in the French West Indies, where her father was stationed as a
diplomat, but back in Paris she studied with Rosine Laborde and the legendary
Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Emma Calvé arranged for the young
contralto’s début at the Opéra-Comique as Gluck’s
Orphée in 1899. She was only 17 years old.
She remained on the roster at the Opéra-Comique until 1903, and it was there that she created the role of Geneviève in Péllas et Mélisande (1902). Because of formidable competition in the form of the well-established Marie Delna (Paris) and Blanche Deschamps-Jehin (Monte Carlo), Gerville-Réache had to look outside France for any measure of personal opportunity or acclaim. She sang in Brussels and at Covent Garden before appearing as La Cieca in La Gioconda at the Manhattan Opera Company in New York (1907). She sang other roles at that house, but created a true sensation in Samson et Dalila.
After Oscar Hammerstein closed the Manhattan Opera, Gerville-Réache appeared with the Chicago, Philadelphia and Montreal companies, but mostly sang in extensive recital tours and as soloist with symphonies throughout the United States. She and her husband (the director of the Pasteur Institute in New York) and their two young sons set up residence in the US in 1910.
In 1915, at the age of 32, Gerville-Réache suffered a case of ptomaine poisoning, which triggered a ruptured appendix, which in turn induced a miscarriage, leading to her death.
According to one commentator, Jeanne Gerville-Réache “possessed the voice of a fine cello swathed in burgundy-colored velvet. A true, sonorous contralto with many of the better qualities of Ernestine Schumann-Heink and Louise Homer, remarkably amalgamated into a single human voice.”