French singer who often worked with Suzanne Lagier and had cartoons (caricatures) drawn by André Gill of her for the newspaper La Lune.
She began her singing career by performing in small café chantants (cafe concerts) in Paris, such as in the Café Moka, Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin and the Café des Giants, enjoying modest success. During a Christmas show, Valladon was noticed by Arsène Goubert, the director of the café chantant Alcazar, who offered her three hundred francs to sing there; at this she began to use the stage name Thérésa. Within a month of her arrival at the Alcazar, Thérésa enjoyed great success both with the public and critics, and also later went to perform in Rome, Italy, and Saint Petersburg, Russia. She often worked with Suzanne Lagier and in the case of “El”, they were appreciated by the public but not the critics. Increasing her popularity, Thérésa was depicted in several cartoons (caricatures) by André Gill in the newspaper La Lune. From 1867 to 1869, she took a break from singing as a result of laryngitis, which made her lose her voice, but then returned with the “popular” Les canards tyroliens.
Some of her most successful songs’ choruses were sung by many people, including “La gardeuse d’ours del” (1863), “Rien n’est sacré pour un sapeur!” (1864) and “La femme à barbe del” (1865). She was “admired” by Alexandre Dumas, Théodore de Banville, Pauline von Metternich and Napoleon III. She was financially very successful; earning around 100,000 francs a year. She retired in 1893, but returned to the stage for an evening to perform Le Chat Noir the following year. She retired for good in 1895 when she went to live in Sarthe, where she died on 14 May 1913.
Link to Wikipedia biography