Marie Collier

Marie Elizabeth Collier (16 April 19278 December 1971) was an Australian operatic soprano.

Marie Collier was born in Ballarat, Victoria, to Thomas Robinson Collier (1894–1962), a railway employee, and his wife Annie Marie (née Bechaz). On leaving school, she worked as a pharmacist's assistant. Due to an injured wrist, she gave up the piano and began training as a singer. and The Makropulos Case at Sadler's Wells (12 February 1964).

Other roles at Covent Garden in subsequent seasons included Musetta in La bohème; Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann; Liu in Turandot; Flora in La traviata; Butterfly in Madama Butterfly; and the title role in the 1963 production of Tosca. In May 1960 her role of Musetta was described by Evan Senior as "the most astonishing and effective playing and full-voiced singing of the role I have ever heard or seen".

In 1967, she created the role of Christine Mannon in the world premiere of Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra at the Metropolitan Opera, in which Evelyn Lear and Sherrill Milnes also sang. Her other roles with the Met included Musetta, Tosca (on tour to Cleveland, Ohio), and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana.

In 1968, she participated in the first opera telecast in Australia (Tosca, with Donald Smith as Cavaradossi and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia).

She was also noted as Chrysothemis in Sir Georg Solti's acclaimed recording of Richard Strauss's Elektra, with Birgit Nilsson in the title role.

She was announced dead on 8 December 1971 due to intracranial hemorrhage and fractured skull in Charing Cross Hospital, London, after falling from a window on her London flat at the age of 44. This occurred shortly after she had been chosen to sing the part of Cassandra in Berlioz's opera Les Troyens at Covent Garden.