Léon Escalaïs (August 8, 1859, Cuxac-d'Aude – November 8, 1940, Cuxac-d'Aude) was a prominent French tenor, particularly associated with French and Italian heroic roles. His lean, nimble and powerful voice was noted for the ease and brilliance of its upper register.
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.
César Vezzani (8 August 1888 – 11 November 1951) was a French/Corsican operatic tenor who became a leading exponent of French grand opera through several decades. (Some sources give his date of birth as 1886.)
Marcel Merkès (7 July 1920 – 30 March 2007) was a French tenor operetta singer.
Merkès was born in Bordeaux. After receiving several prizes in singing at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux, he started at the age of 22 years at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux in the role of Des Grieux in Manon, an opera by Jules Massenet. He often performed an operetta duo with his wife Paulette Merval, a singer and violinist, who he had met at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux. They totaled more than 10,500 performances and recorded many records in their careers. He was a prolific performer at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris.
Merkès was married to violinist and singer Paulette Merval. Their son, Alain Merkès, also pursued a career as singer under the name Alain Valmer. Marcel died in Pessac.
Charles Burles (21 June 1936 – 22 August 2021) was a French lyric tenor, primarily associated with the French repertory, both opera and operetta.
Laurent Naouri, Chevalier L.H. (born May 23, 1964) is a French bass-baritone. Initially beginning his education at the École Centrale de Lyon, Naouri decided to concentrate on opera in 1986 and continued his musical studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Naouri was born in Paris. His professional career in France began in 1992 with performances in the title role of Darius Milhaud’s Christophe Colomb (Christopher Columbus) for the opening of the Imperial Theatre in Compiègne. Progressing rapidly, his career quickly comprised a very varied repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to contemporary composers under such conductors as Maurizio Benini, William Christie, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, and Kent Nagano.
Naouri made his debut at the Opéra Garnier in the role of Thésée in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, followed by Eugene Onegin at the Opéra de Nancy, interpreting at the Opéra Bastille the roles of the Comte Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon and Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro. A wide range of roles has followed, including many from the Baroque era including Rameau's Platée and Les Indes galantes and Handel's Alcina.
In Britain, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House in 2006 in the role of Escamillo in Carmen; in the United States at the Santa Fe Opera he appeared in the same role in the 2006 Carmen . Also at the Santa Fe Opera, he is scheduled for the role of Falstaff in Verdi's opera of the same name for June/July 2008 and as Germont in the 2009 La traviata starring his wife as Violetta.
Naouri is married to soprano Natalie Dessay, and they have two children.
José Luccioni (14 October 1903 in Bastia – 5 October 1978 in Marseille) was a French operatic tenor of Corsican origin. He possessed one of the best dramatic voices of the 1930s and 1940s.
Initially a racing car driver and mechanic at the Citroën car company, his voice was discovered while he was serving in the military. He studied singing in Paris with the eminent former tenors Léon David and Léon Escalais and made his debut in Rouen as Cavaradossi in Tosca in 1931. During the 1932-33 season he debuted at both the Palais Garnier and the Opéra-Comique, where he won considerable acclaim as Don José in Carmen, a role he sang an estimated 500 times during his career.
He sang widely in Europe, spending much of 1935-37 in Italy, appearing in Florence, Turin and Verona but mostly at the Rome Opera. He also appeared at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, the Monte Carlo Opera, the Liceo in Barcelona and other European venues. He made his South American debut at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1936, and sang in the United States at the Lyric Opera of Chicago during the 1937-38 season.
Luccioni had an impressively large voice that combined beauty with power, in the tradition of his great French predecessor at the Paris Opéra, Paul Franz (1876–1950). He was also a fine singing-actor. Notable roles of his included Roland, Samson, Vasco, Jean, Turiddu, Canio, Chenier, Radames and Otello. He also appeared in a few motion pictures, including Colomba (1948) and Le bout de la route (1948). After retirement, he served as Director of the Opéra de Nice.
His son, Jacques Luccioni, was also an opera singer, first as a tenor and later as a baritone.
Luccioni died in the South of France shortly before his 75th birthday. He left a sizeable legacy of recordings made during his vocal prime. A wide selection of these recordings are available on CD. They confirm Luccioni's reputation as being one of the finest ever French dramatic tenors.
Jean Giraudeau (1 July 1916, in Toulon – 7 February 1995), was an artist and French tenor, and later theatre director, particularly associated with the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and described in Grove as having a “lyrical voice” as well as being “a superb character actor”. He left a wide selection of recordings from both his operatic and concert repertoire, and created roles in several contemporary operas.
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.