Article

Isabelle Burnada

Published Online June 26, 2007

Last Edited December 12, 2013

Isabelle (b Boyer de la Giroday) Burnada. Mezzo-soprano, teacher, b Curepipe, Mauritius, 15 Feb 1899, d Vancouver 13 Mar 1972. Her parents emigrated to Canada when she was a child and settled in Mission, BC, in 1909. In 1919 she moved to Vancouver.

Burnada, Isabelle

Isabelle (b Boyer de la Giroday) Burnada. Mezzo-soprano, teacher, b Curepipe, Mauritius, 15 Feb 1899, d Vancouver 13 Mar 1972. Her parents emigrated to Canada when she was a child and settled in Mission, BC, in 1909. In 1919 she moved to Vancouver. Her talent greatly impressed Senator Patrick Burns, who for six years sponsored her studies with Mme Courso, Charles Panzéra, and Marcel Boudouresque in Paris and Maestro Piccoli in Milan. (Her professional name, Mme Burnada, was derived from 'Burns' and 'Canada'.) Her first major success (ca 1924) came when she substituted for an ailing colleague in the title role of Gluck's Orfeo in Orange, France. After performances 1927-8 in Toronto, New York, Boston, and Chicago, she made her London concert debut in April 1928. She appeared in Vancouver in October 1929 and subsequently toured in Canada and the USA. Mme Burnada was best known for concert performances of operatic arias and Lieder. Ill health curtailed her concert career, and from the mid-1930s until 1957 she devoted herself to teaching in Vancouver. Her pupils included Ernest Adams, Douglas McKay-Smith, and Robert Heath.