Tag Archives: André Theuriet

Episode 480. Bacquier Encore

July 14, 2026Art Song, Bel canto, French Opera, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Listeners' Favorites, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century Opera, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAlfred de Musset, Almire Gandonnière, Ambroise Thomas, André Theuriet, Andrea del Sarto, Ariettes oubliées, Arrigo Boito, Camille Saint-Saens, Carlo Pepoli, Catherine Brilli, Cesar Franck, Claude Debussy, Daniel Lesur, Don Giovanni, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edmont Gondinet, Édouard Lalo, Ernest Chausson, François Coppée, Gabriel Bacquier, Gabriel Faure, Gérard de Narval, Giuseppe Verdi, Hamlet, Hector Berlioz, Henri Duparc, Henri Gui, I Puritani, Jacques Mars, Jacques Offenbach, Jésus Etchéverry, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jules Barbier, Jules Massenet, La Damnation de Faust, Lakmé, Le nozze di Figaro, Leconte de Lisle, Léo Delibes, Lorenzo da Ponte, Louis de Fourcaud, Louise Valmaggia, Manuel Rosenthal, Maurice Bouchor, Michel Carré, Otello, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Gille, Pierre Beaumarchais, Pierre Loti, Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Reynaldo Hahn, Roméo et Juliette, Sully Prudhomme, Victor Hugo, Vincenzo Bellini, William Shakespeare, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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Allons, enfants de la patrie! Let’s celeberate Bastille Day in style! And what better exemplar of the power and élan of French music than the great Gabriel Bacquier?! It was only about a year ago that I published an episode featuring Bacquier singing art song. Today’s episode combines Bacquier in his more familiar guise as an opera singer, with further (and even rarer) recordings of him singing mélodies. About a year ago I coughed up a lot of dough for a super-expensive and super-rare 2-LP set entitled Panorama de la Mélodie française in which Bacquier shared the vocal honors with a French coloratura soprano who is virtually forgotten today. Today we hear his contribution to that rare 1964 release featuring songs by the usual suspects: Fauré, Debussy, Duparc, and Hahn, alongside some less-familiar repertoire by Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and Lalo. It came out to not quite enough music for a full episode, so I have supplemented it with excerpts from a great, but nearly forgotten, triumph of Bacquier’s: his assumption of the title role of French composer Daniel-Lesur’s 1968 opera, Andrea del Sarto. (Astute listeners will remember that last week I played Alain Vanzo singing a selection from this same piece.) In addition, I offer selections from two different 1963 aria recitals by Bacquier, one in Italian, the other in French. This assortment of material reasserts Bacquier’s versatility, his solid technique, even the beauty of his voice at that point in his career. As his voice aged, Bacquier gradually assumed more bass roles and character parts but throughout the 1960s, his voice retained its youthful beauty even as his characterizations gained in precision and power. Along with a handful of other French singers during that era, Bacquier was the greatest of the great.

Countermelody is the podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

Episode 478. Martial Singher: Un recueil de mélodies

July 7, 2026Art Song, Great Baritones, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Singers in Old Age, Twentieth Century MusicAlden Gilchrist, André Theuriet, Armand Ocampo, Armand Silvestre, Chansons gaillardes, Charles Baudelaire, Charles d’Orléans, Charles Gounod, Charles-Gaston Levadé, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, Edmond Rostand, Emmanuel Chabrier, Francis Poulenc, Gabriel Faure, Henri Duparc, Herman Bemberg, Jean-Baptiste Faure, Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, John La Montaine, Jules Bertrand, Jules Lafforgue, Jules Massenet, Leconte de Lisle, Louis Gallet, Louise-Rose Gérard, Marcel Hubert, Martial Singher, Maurice Ravel, Paul Morand, Paul Ulanowsky, Piero Coppola, Reynaldo Hahn, Rosemonde Gérard, Ross Norwood, Victor Hugocountermelody

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Today is the first in a series of episodes honoring our Gallic friends, who this month also celebrate their independence day, call it what you will, Bastille Day or Le Quatorze Juillet. Our featured singer is French baritone Martial Singher (1904-1990). His career extended from opera to concert to recital and back again, but the main focus on this episode is on the wide range of French song that he performed in recital. I present in its entirety an ultra-rare 1950 recording entitled A Treasury of French Songs, which samples everything from parlor songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Charles Gounod, and Herman Bemberg; to deliciously treacly religious songs from Henri Büsser and Jean-Baptiste Faure (yes, “The Palms” in its original French!); to masterpieces of mélodie by Fauré, Duparc, and Chabrier. The episode is anchored by performances of Ravel and Poulenc songs recorded by Singher in 1934 and 1975, including Poulenc’s fervent “Priez pour paix,” recorded by Singher at the age of 70.

Episode 448. Get to Know Germaine Cernay

March 24, 2026Art Song, Forgotten Divas, French Opera, Great Contraltos, Lieder, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Opera in Translation, Operetta, Orchestral Songs, VerismoAdolphe d’Ennery, Alphonse Daudet, Ambroise Thomas, André d’Arkor, André Theuriet, Armand Renaud, Arthur Bernède, Büsser, Camille Saint-Saens, Carmen, Charles Bordes, Charles Friant, Claude Debussy, Die lustige Witwe, Don Quichotte, Édouard Blau, Édouard Lalo, Emmanuel Chabrier, Ferdinand Lemaire, Francis Cebron, Franz Lehár, Friedrich Rückert, Gabriel Faure, Gaston Arman de Caillavet, Georges Bizet, Georges Dandelot, Georges Hartmann, Georges Thill, Germaine Cernay, Gustave Cloëz, Gustave Flaubert, Henri Benoit, Henri Cain, Henri Grémont, Henri Meilhac, Hérodiade, Homer, Jacques Le Lorrain, Jean Ibos, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Brahms, Jules Barbier, Jules Claretie, Jules Massenet, La Veuve joyeuse, Le Cid, Leo Stein, Louis Gallet, Lucette Descaves-Truc, Ludovic Halévy, Maurice Maeterlinck, Michel Carré, Mignon, Paul Milliet, Paul Minssart, Paul Verlaine, Pelleas et Melisande, Pénélope, Pierre Corneille, Pierre Louÿs, Prosper Mérimée, René Fauchois, Robert de Flers, Roger Bourdin, Rosemonde Gérard, Samson et Dalila, Sapho, Thérèse (Massenet), Victor Léon, Xavier Lerouxcountermelody

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Today’s featured artist is, I hope, a name that some of you will at least have heard of: the French mezzo-soprano Germaine Cernay, born Germaine Pointu in Le Havre in 1900 and dying tragically young of an epileptic event in war-torn Paris at the age of only 43. Here is an artist who strikes a balance between poise and white heat, with a voice of exquisite timbre anchored by a flawless technique. Between making her debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1927 and her early retirement from her singing career the year before her death with the intention of becoming a nun, Cernay was a prodigious recording artist and a habituée of both the operatic stage and the concert platform. Today’s episode presents her in her core operatic repertoire (Debussy, Fauré, Mascagni, Bizet, Thomas, and Saint-Saëns), with a strong emphasis on the works of Jules Massenet (Werther, Don Quichotte, Thérèse, Le Cid, Hérodiade, Sapho). Cernay is also heard at the outer edges of the mélodie repertoire, singing songs by Charles Bordes, Xavier Leroux, and Georges Dandelot, alongside the more familiar Lalo, Chabrier, and Brahms, not to forget a smattering of operetta. Some of her strongest recordings feature stellar contributions by fellow singers Georges Thill, Arthur Endrèze, André d’Arkor, Roger Bourdin, and Charles Friant. In recent years, even without a sytstematic reissue of her recorded oeuvre, her reputation has only increased, and she is now recognized as a standard-bearer of the French mezzo-soprano repertoire.

Episode 394. Valletti Revisited (French Edition)

September 15, 2025Art Song, Bel canto, French Opera, Great Tenors, In Memoriam, Listeners' Favorites, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Verismo, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAbbé Prevost, Alphonse Daudet, André Theuriet, Armand Silvestre, Bruno Rigacci, Cesare Valletti, Charles Baudelaire, Claude Debussy, Édouard Blau, Francesco Cilea, Gabriel Faure, Georges Hartmann, Gioachino Rossini, Hector Berlioz, Henri Cazalis, Henri Duparc, Henri Meilhac, Jean Lahor, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Joseph Szulc, Jules Massenet, L’Arlesiana, La Betulia liberata, La Donna del Lago, Leconte de Lisle, Leo Taubman, Les nuits d’été, Manon, Mario Rossi, Paul Bourget, Paul Milliet, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Gille, Pierre Monteux, Pietro Metastasio, René Leibowitz, Reynaldo Hahn, Robert de Bonnières, Romain Bussine, Rosalind Elias, Théophile Gautier, Tullio Serafin, Victor Hugo, Victoria de los Angeles, Walter Scott, Werther, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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More than two years and nearly two hundred episodes ago, I published an episode on the great Italian tenore di grazia Cesare Valletti. Today I revisit his recorded legacy, focusing on his prowess in the French repertoire, both in opera and, rather uncharacteristically for an Italian tenor of the era, mélodie. Not only do I present the complete 1965 LP entitled Cesare Valletti Sings French Art Songs, which was his final release on the RCA Victor label, but I supplement that with two fantabulous death scenes from two of Jules Massenet’s most popular operas, Manon (a live 1954 recording pairing Valletti with Victoria de los Angeles at her most memorable), and Werther (a 1962 studio recording of excerpts from the opera featuring Rosalind Elias, the dearly beloved mezzo-soprano of blessed memory.) Valletti once again reveals himself an artist of refined taste, as well as (in the operatic excerpts) a surprisingly powerful and forthright vocal present and (in the song repertoire) an interpreter with superb French diction and exquisite insight into the half-lit atmosphere of the genre.

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and author yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.