Viardot-García, (Michelle Ferdinande) Pauline (1821–1910)

French mezzo-soprano and composer of Spanish descent. She made her first appearance as a singer in Brussels in 1837 and first visited London in 1839, as Rossini's Desdemona; in Paris she sang Fidès, and Orpheus in an arrangement of Gluck's opera by Berlioz. She wrote the operettas Le Dernier Sorcier, L'Ogre, and Trop de femmes, to libretti by the Russian author Turgenev. She also wrote songs.

She was the daughter of Manuel García and the sister of the mezzo Maria Malibran. She was taught by her father, and also studied piano. In 1840 she married the opera manager and critic Louis Viardot (1800–83). After retiring from the stage, she sang in the first performances of Massenet's Marie-Magdeleine and Brahms's Alto Rhapsody (1870).