Marie Baptiste

Marie Baptiste (8 February 1733 Bordeaux, France – after 1786) was a French stage actress and singer. She is best known for her career in Sweden, where she was a leading member of the French Theatre in the mid 18th-century.

Life

Marie Baptiste was born as Marie Dumont or Du Mont in Bordeaux in France. She was active as an actress with the stage name Mademoiselle le Prévost or Mademoiselle le Prevot. In February 1754 in The Hague, she married her colleague, the actor Jacques Anselme Baptiste (1732-?) and became known as Madame Baptiste. She became the mother of two daughters and two sons, notably her daughter Maria Louise Baptiste.

French theater in Sweden

In 1756, Marie Baptiste and her spouse where engaged by theater director Louis Du Londel to the French theater in Sweden. Louis Du Londel recruited eight new members to the Theater in his journey to The Hague, of which Marie Baptiste were counted as the most significant.

The French Du Londel theater in Sweden performed for the Royal Swedish court in the palace theaters of Confidencen and Drottningholm Palace Theater during the summers, and for the public in the Bollhuset theater in Stockholm during the winters. It was a significant theater with about twenty members, patronized by the royal court and the aristocracy. Her spouse was engaged as the French language teacher of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Gustav.

The French Theater was organized in accordance to a strict hierarchical categorization system. Marie Baptiste was contracted to play the female leading roles of tragedies and comedies of the Comédie-Française and Comédie-Italienne as well as the breeches roles of the opéra comique, while her husband was contracted to play supporting roles. Marie Baptiste attracted particular appreciation as a tragedienne, and Prince Gustav compared her to the Marie Dumesnil in Paris. When her husband lost his position at the Royal orchestra in 1786, he and Marie Baptiste left Sweden permanently.