Blanche Arral was a Belgian coloratura soprano. Born Clara Lardinois, she studied under Mathilde Graumann Marchesi

Mathilde Marchesi

Mathilde Marchesi was a German mezzo-soprano, a renowned teacher of singing, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method.-Biography:...

 in Paris. She debuted in a small part in the 1884 world premiere of Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

's Manon

Manon

Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...

. Arral performed in various opera houses in Brussels, Paris and St. Petersburg before moving to the United States. In October 1909 she debuted at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 and joined the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 for the 1909-1910 season. She received her voice instruction from Mathilde Graumann Marchesi

Mathilde Marchesi

Mathilde Marchesi was a German mezzo-soprano, a renowned teacher of singing, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method.-Biography:...

. Arral was married to Hamilton Dwight Bassett, a journalist from Cincinnati. Author Jack London

Jack London

John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

based the character of Lucille Arral in his short story collection Smoke Bellew on Blanche Arral.