Eugénie Julienne-Dejean

Eugénie Julienne-Dejean was a French soprano who created Amelia in Un ballo in maschera at the Teatro Apollo in Rome in 1859, engaged despite Verdi's misgivings. She studied in Rouen with Louis Malliot and at the Paris Conservatoire, and sang at the Paris Opéra from 1845, as Valentine, Rachel and Alice among others, taking over Hélène in Verdi's Jérusalem in 1847. That year she married the engineer Joseph Dejean and added his name to her own. She later sang in Barcelona and at the Théâtre-Italien, and in 1875 co-founded a theatrical agency in Paris.