Armand Castelmary

A French bass, born Comte Armand de Castan, whose career ran from the Paris Opéra of the 1860s to the Metropolitan Opera thirty years later. He was at the Opéra from 1863 to 1870, creating Don Diego in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, the Monk in Don Carlos and Horatio in Thomas's Hamlet, and he married the soprano Marie Sass in 1864, the marriage ending in divorce three years later. He first sang at Covent Garden in 1889 and joined the Met in 1893. He died there in 1897, collapsing on stage during Martha, the audience taking his heart attack for acting.