ALBANI, DAME EMMA, née LAJEVNESSE (1852-1930), celebrated Canadian singer, who was born in Chambly, Quebec.
'Whether Alba means "white" is very doubtful: it is more probably derived from the root Alp.
on Nov. 1, 1852. She made her first public appearance in Mont real, at the age of seven, and after studying at Milan with Lam perti (having meanwhile adopted for stage purposes the name of Albani, after that of an extinct Italian family) she made her debut at Messina in Bellini's La Sonnambula, achieving an im mediate success, which was repeated when two years later, on April 2, 1872, she made her first appearance at Covent Garden in the same opera. Thenceforward for a long period she enjoyed the widest fame and popularity, being not less esteemed as a woman than admired for her art. She married in 1878 Ernest Gye, who died in 1925, and in the same year she was accorded the D.B.E. She died in London on April 3, 193o.
See her Forty Years of Song 0910 .