Maria Francisca Bia
Dutch actress (1809-1889)
Maria Francisca Bia known as Mimi Bia and as Mimi Engelman-Bia and Mimi de Vries-Bia (9 September 1809 – 13 July 1889) was a Dutch ballet dancer, opera singer (soprano) and dramatic stage actress. Starting her career as a ballet dancer, she had a parallel career as both a soprano opera singer as well as a dramatic stage actress at the Amsterdamse Schouwburg, where she had a dominant role within the Dutch theatre world. She was the manager director and owner of the theatre Utrechtse Schouwburg in Utrecht in 1875-1880.
Biography
Mimi Bia was born in Amsterdam to Jean Lambert Bia (1767–1829) and Catherine Rebecca Grave (1782–1846).
In 1828 she married the actor Reinier Engelman (1795–1845), director and manager of the Amsterdamse Schouwburg, and in 1865 to the actor Jan Eduard de Vries (1808–1875), director and manager of the theatre Utrechtse Schouwburg in Utrecht.
Her parents were both engaged as ballet dancers at the Amsterdamse Schouwburg, and Mimi Bia started her stage career as a ballet dancer in her childhood. She was given good critic as a ballet dancer. She was additionally given instruction in dramatic acting by Johanna Wattier and made her debut as an actor at the age of ten. She was given instruction in singing and made her debut in her third profession as an operatic society at the age of fourteen.
Mimi Bia made her formal debut at the Amsterdamse Schouwburg in 1826.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Maria Francisca Bia” is dutch actress (1809-1889). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maria, Francisca and Dutch, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q4938961. VIAF identifies the subject as 290249295. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1889, 1875 and 1880.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Francisca Bia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.