French operatic baritones

André Gaston Baugé (4 January 1893, Toulouse - 25 May 1966, Clichy-la-Garenne) was a French baritone, active in opera and operetta, who also appeared in films in the 1930s.

Jean-Philippe Lafont (born 11 February 1951) is a French baritone. He studied in his native city of Toulouse and later at the Opéra-Studio in Paris. He made his operatic debut as Papageno in The Magic Flute at the Salle Favart, Paris in 1974. He went on to appear regularly in Toulouse, where he first played the title role in Verdi's Falstaff in 1987.Lafont has performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan and the Royal Opera House, London. Among the roles with which he is particularly associated are the four villains in The Tales of Hoffmann, the Comte des Grieux in Manon, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, Barak in Die Frau ohne Schatten and the title roles in Gianni Schicchi, Rigoletto, Boris Godunov and Macbeth.His discography includes:

Auber: La muette de Portici
Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust
Bizet: Djamileh
Debussy: La chute de la maison Usher
Escaich: Claude
Gluck: Les Pélerins de la Mecque
Gounod: Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cécile
Offenbach: La Belle Hélène
Offenbach: Mesdames de la Halle
Offenbach: Monsieur Choufleuri
Offenbach: Pomme d'Api
Salieri: Les Danaïdes
Salieri: Tarare
Verdi: Falstaff

Camille Maurane (November 29, 1911 – January 21, 2010), born Camille Moreau, was a French baryton-martin singer. His father was a music teacher and he started singing as a child in the Maîtrise Saint-Evode in Rouen. The sudden death of his mother and family upheaval meant a break of twelve years in regular singing.
He studied at the Paris Conservatoire in the class of Claire Croiza from 1936 to 1939. He began his professional career as a singer in 1940 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. After his debut as the Moine musicien in Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame on 14 January 1940, he went to create the following roles at the Opéra-Comique:

the captain (Nèle Dooryn, 1940)
Doria (Ginevra, 1942)
a man, a peasant (Mon Oncle Benjamin, 1942)
a young man (Le Oui des Jeunes Filles, 1949).
Un Soldat (Dolorès, 1952)He also sang in The Barber of Seville, La Basoche, Carmen, Lakmé, Louise, Madame Bovary, Madame Butterfly, Werther, Pelléas et Mélisande and oratorios like La Chanson du mal-aimé. He was occasionally billed under the name Moreau.His voice was typical of the baryton-martin range (between baritone and tenor). He is famous for his interpretation of Debussy's Pelléas, for which he took part in three complete recordings of Pelléas et Mélisande. He is also regarded as one of the best interpreters of French mélodies, of which he left many recordings, since reissued on CD, and of Fauré's Requiem. His repertoire extended back to music of Rameau through to Arthur Honegger, Léo Ferré and other contemporaries.
A dedicated teacher, he taught at the Paris Conservatory until 1981.

Michel Dens (22 June 1911 in Roubaix – 19 December 2000 in Paris) was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory, both opera and operetta.
Born Maurice Marcel, the son of a journalist, he studied at the Academy of Music in Roubaix. He made his debut at the Opéra de Lille, as Wagner in Gounod's Faust, in 1934, and remained there as a member until 1936. Thereafter he sang at the Opera Houses of Bordeaux, Grenoble, Toulouse and Marseille. In 1943, he was heard at the Monte Carlo Opera as Escamillo, Valentin, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro.
After the Second World War, he began a very successful career at the Opéra-Comique and the Palais Garnier in Paris. His roles at the Opéra-Comique included; Figaro, Lescaut, Zurga, Frédéric, Ourrias, Dapertutto, Alfio, Marcello, Scarpia, et al., he took part there in the creation of Emmanuel Bondeville's Madame Bovary, on 1 June 1951.
His debut role at the Opéra in 1947 was in the title role of Rigoletto, he also sang there as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Hérode in Hérodiade, Athanaël in Thais, et al. He appeared with success at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at most of the great Opera Houses of France.
He also appeared in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and North Africa.
He enjoyed a remarkably long and successful career, singing in opera as late as 1979, and also attaining magnificent success in French and Viennese operettas, notably in Lehár's The Land of Smiles and The Merry Widow. He also sang in works by Louis Varney, Robert Planquette, Charles Lecocq, André Messager, and others. As late as 1992, he gave concerts in Paris and Marseille. He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
Dens sang an estimated 10,000 performances during his long career.

Ernest Blanc (November 1, 1923 – December 22, 2010) was a French opera singer, one of the leading baritones of his era in France.
Born in Sanary-sur-Mer, Ernest Blanc studied at the Music Conservatory of Toulon with Sabran, from 1946 to 1949. He made his debut in Marseille, as Tonio, in 1950. He then sang throughout France in the French and Italian repertories.
In 1954, he made his debut at the Palais Garnier in Paris, as Rigoletto, he sang there as first baritone for 25 years in a wide repertoire (Rameau, Mozart, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Verdi, Puccini, etc.). He also appeared often at the Opéra-Comique, and was a regular guest at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
His career took an international turn in 1958, with debut at the Bayreuth Festival, followed by debuts at La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House in London, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Monte Carlo Opera, the Teatro Nacional Sao Carlos in Lisbon, the Liceo in Barcelona, the Berlin State Opera, etc.
He also enjoyed considerable success in America, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, etc.
Notable roles included; Don Giovanni, Valentin, Zurga, Escamillo, Golaud, Germont, Renato, Amonasro, Scarpia, Riccardo in I puritani, opposite Joan Sutherland, Alfonso in La favorite, Wolfram, Telramund, etc.
A stylish singer and a fine musician, he possessed a beautiful voice with a brilliant upper register and impeccable diction, one of the few post war French singers to have enjoyed a truly international career. After his retirement he taught in Paris.

Jean-Baptiste Faure (French: [ʒɑ̃batist fɔʁ]) (15 January 1830 – 9 November 1914) was a French operatic baritone and art collector who also composed several classical songs.