Gérard Souzay

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

Life

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

His first public appearance was a Fauré recital in Paris, and on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday in 1945 he performed a series of recitals in London's entire songwriting and also performed in a performance of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall London with. Together with Elly Ameling and with Dalton Baldwin on the piano, he later recorded all of Gabriel Fauré's songs. In 1946 he made his first regular recordings in Paris after making recordings in 1944 for the French Decca together with Germaine Rubin and Geneviéve Touraine, his sister 15 years older, accompanied by Jean-Michel Damase. Already here his turn to the French song (Mélodie) became apparent, the interpretation of which he later led to completion.

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

His first accompanist when singing lieder was Jacqueline Bonneau (who had studied at the same time at the Paris Conservatory), but she was afraid of flying and refused to fly, so he had to look for a new partner at the piano. In 1954 he met the American pianist Dalton Baldwin , who from then on - with a few exceptions - became his sole accompanist and with whom he had an ongoing artistic partnership.

His subsequent interpretations of the songs (Mélodies) of French composers such as Duparc, Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel, Chabrier, Leguerney, Roussel and Debussy were heard in a perfection that had never been heard before. Beethoven's "An die ferne Geliebte", Schubert's "Schöne Müllerin" and "Winterreise", Schumann's "Dichterliebe" and the Liederkreise op. 39 and op 90, songs by Wolf and Richard Strauss, to name them here as examples, he sang in Accent-free German and a perfect fusion of word and tone. His extraordinary talent for languages ​​allowed Souzay to sing in 15 different languages ​​including Finnish, Hebrew, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian. In the field of contemporary music he took part in Honegger's "Dance of Death" and in the world premiere of Stravinsky's "Canticum sacrum". The composer Jacques Leguerney (1906–1997) wrote many songs for Souzay and his sister Genevieve, who was also a celebrated singer. In 1947 Poulenc composed one of his 3 "Lorca Chansons" (Chanson de l'oranger) for the then still young baritone.

Souzay began his operatic career in 1947 in Cimarosa's "Il matrimonio segreto" at the d'Aix-en-Provence Festival, but it was not until the late 1950s that he expanded his stage work, which, however, did not take precedence over his recitals. His stage roles were Orfeo in Monteverdi's and Gluck's "Orfeo", Don Giovanni in Mozart's opera of the same name and Count Almaviva in "Figaro's Wedding", Lescaut in Massenet's "Manon Lescaut" and Mephistopheles in Berlioz's "Faust's Damnation". One of 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 continued to devote himself to song singing and only withdrew from appearances completely in the late 1980s. He devoted the last years of his life to master classes given in the United States, Europe and Japan. He was an inspiring teacher who preferred to work more on the musical expression and mood of a song than on the French language. He was a passionate abstract painter and in 1983 published a book "Sur mon chemin. Pensées et dessins" (in German: "About my path: thoughts and paintings"), in which a selection of his paintings with comments on art and life written by him are provided.

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

literature

• Manuel Brug: Singing with a silver pen: the song as a life's work . In: The world . August 21, 2004 ( welt.de [accessed December 9, 2005] obituary).
• Manuel Morris: The recorded performances of Gérard Souzay: a discography. Greenwood, New York [et. a.] 1991, ISBN 0-313-27392-8 .

Web links

• Sound carrier by Gérard Souzay in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gérard Souzay at Allmusic (English)
• Gérard Souzay at Bach Cantatas (English)