Georgette Leblanc's successors were Mme. Delna, Zélie de Lussan, Marié de l'Isle (who sang Mercedes before she sang Carmen), Cécile Thévenet, Jenny Passama, Claire Friché, Marguerite Sylva, Mme. Lafargue, Mlle. Vix, Mlle. Brohly, Mlle. Charbonnel, Sigrid Arnoldson, Mlle. Mérentié, and Lucienne Bréval, whom Zuloaga painted twice in the part. One of these painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other belongs to Mme. Bréval. I have not seen Mme. Bréval in _Carmen_ but I have seen her in other operas and I think I am safe in saying that Zuloaga's conception of her is more gipsy-like than her performance.... One of the latest of the Paris Carmens has been Mary Garden. [Illustration: ZULOAGA'S PORTRAIT OF LUCIENNE BRÉVAL AS CARMEN. ACT II] _By permission of the Hispanic Society of America_ I think Col. Mapleson brought _Carmen_ to London. The first performance was given June 22, 1878, at Her Majesty's Theatre. He was fortunate in having as his leading interpreter Minnie Hauk of Brooklyn, who, I believe, had been heard in the part in Brussels before she sang it in London. She is said to have been fascinating in the rôle and straightway made it pretty much her own. Mapleson in his "Memoirs" tells what a time he had with the other interpreters. Campanini returned the part of José, giving as his explanation that he had no romance and no love duet except with the _seconda donna_. Del Puente suggested that the part of Escamillo must have been intended for one of the chorus. Mlle. Valleria made a similar remark in regard to Micaela. However, the wily Colonel managed to get the singers to come to a rehearsal or two and in a short time they became infatuated with their rôles. It has been generally taken for granted and indeed you will find it so stated in most of the books, that Minnie Hauk was the first American Carmen, but Clara Louise Kellogg in her "Memoirs" denies this, asserting that she preceded Miss Hauk here in the rôle by several months.[4] One thing is certain, that Miss Hauk made more of an impression as Carmen on her contemporaries than Mme. Kellogg. An early international exponent of the rôle was Marie Roze, who according to H. Sutherland Edwards, at first could scarcely be persuaded to undertake a character of so vile a nature. She finally succumbed to the lure, however. Edwards says of her: "Marie Roze brought forward the gentle side of the character. Carmen has something of the playfulness of the cat, something also of the ferocity of the tigress; and the ferocious side of Carmen's disposition could not find a sympathetic exponent in Madame Marie Roze." Clara Louise Kellogg gives us, as is her wont, a more forceful description: "When she (Marie Roze) was singing _Carmen_ she was the gentlest mannered gipsy that was ever stabbed by a jealous lover--a handsome Carmen but too sweet and good for anything."