MADO ROBIN

'Madeleine Marie Robin', known as 'Mado Robin' (December 29, 1918 - December 10, 1960), was a French singer who was born in Yzeures-sur-Creuse, Touraine.
A coloratura soprano, she had an exceptionally wide vocal range (she hit D4 above high-C in live performance in Vichy) which gave her a broad repertoire. Amongst her roles stand Lakmé, which she recorded for Decca Records in 1952, ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', Olympia in ''Les contes d'Hoffmann'', Gilda in ''Rigoletto'', Rosina in ''Il barbiere di Siviglia'', and Leyla in ''Les pêcheurs de perles.
A star of television and radio in the nineteen-fifties, she was well known in France. In 1954 she went to San Francisco to sing Lucia and Gilda, and had a successful tour of the Soviet Union with 16 concerts over a few weeks.
At 17 she married Alan Smith, an Englishman, who died shortly after World War II in a car crash. She had one daughter. Mado died in Paris in 1960 from liver cancer a few days before the 1500th performance of ''Lakmé'' at the Opéra-Comique, which had organized the event for her birthday.
Her colleagues and relatives remember her as the sweetest and least diva-behaved of women. In 1994, the Bel Canto Society released a video-cassette of her performances, entitled "Mado Robin Live!": Included are excerpts from ''Lakmé'', ''Mireille'', ''Rigoletto'', ''Hamlet'', ''Il barbiere di Siviglia'' and ''Lucia di Lammermoor''.