Gérard Souzay

Gérard Souzay ( born December 8, 1918 in Angers, † August 17, 2004 in Antibes, actually: Gérard Marcel Tisserand ) was a French singer (baritone ).

Gérard Souzay studied alongside his degree in philosophy at the University of Paris, first with Pierre Bernac, the close friend of the composer Francis Poulenc, and completed his studies at Conservartoire National de Paris with Claire and Jean Vanni Marcoux Croiza. There, he won the " Premier Prix de Chant " and the " Premier Prix de Vocalise ".

First public appearance, he designed a Fauré song recital in Paris, and the 100th anniversary of the composer he performed in London in 1945 in a series of recitals whose entire song-writing and also appeared in a performance of the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré at the Royal Albert Hall in London with. Together with Elly Ameling and Dalton Baldwin at the piano, he later took on all the songs Gabriel Fauré. In 1946 he made ​​in Paris his first regular recording session, after 1944 shots together with Germaine Rubin and Geneviève Touraine, his older sister by about 15 years, accompanied by Jean -Michel Damase, for the French Decca has already been created. Even here his turn to the French song ( Mélodie ) recorded from whose interpretation he later led to completion.

But the German song fascinated Souzay, and under the guidance of Lotte Lehmann, he worked intensively with Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and later with Richard Strauss.

His first companion in the song singing was Jacqueline Bonneau ( who had studied at the same time with him at the Paris Conservatory ), but had a fear of flying and refused to fly, so he had to find a new partner at the piano. In 1954, he met the American pianist Dalton Baldwin know that from now on - with few exceptions - his sole companion song was and with whom he had an ongoing artistic community.

Its now following interpretations of the songs ( mélodies ) French composers such as Duparc, Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel, Chabrier, Leguerney, Roussell, Debussy rang in to then unheard perfection. Beethoven's " To the Distant Beloved ", Schubert's " Beautiful Miller's Wife " and " Winterreise", Schumann's " Dichterliebe " and the songs circuits op 39 and op 90 songs by Wolf and Richard Strauss, to name them here as an example, he sang in accent-free German and in a perfect fusion of word and sound. His extraordinary talent for languages ​​allowed Souzay, in 15 different languages ​​including singing in Finnish, Hebrew, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian. In the field of contemporary music, he worked in Honegger's " Totentanz " and the world premiere of Stravinsky's " Canticum Sacrum " with. The composer Jacques Leguerney (1906-1997) wrote many songs for Souzay and his sister Genevieve, who was also a celebrated singer. 1947 Poulenc composed one of his three " Lorca Chansons " ( Chanson de l' orange ) for the then young baritone.

Souzay began his operatic career in 1947 in Cimarosa's "Il matrimonio segreto " at the Festival in Aix- en- Provence, but only in the late 1950s he extended his stage work, however, won not take precedence over his recitals. His stage roles were Orfeo in Monteverdi and Gluck's " Orfeo ," Don Giovanni in Mozart's eponymous opera, and Count Almaviva in " The Marriage of Figaro ", the Lescaut in Massenet's " Manon Lescaut " and Mephistopheles in Berlioz's " Damnation of Faust ". One his favorite and most successful roles was that of Golaud in Claude Debussy's " Pelléas and Mélisande ". After the 1960s Souzay limited his stage work, but devoted himself to continue the song vocals and retired only in the late 1980s, all of gigs back. The last years of his life he devoted master classes he gave in the United States, Europe and Japan. He was an inspiring teacher, preferably more to the musical expression and emotional content of a song worked as in French language. He was a passionate abstract painter and published in 1983 a book " Sur mon chemin Pensées et dessins. " ( In German: "On my way: thoughts and paintings" ), in which a selection of his paintings written by him commentaries on art and life are provided.

On 17 August 2004, Gérard Souzay died in his sleep at his home in Antibes on the Cote d'Azur in southern France.