Germaine Cernay

Germaine Cernay , actually Germaine Pointu (born April 28, 1900 in Le Havre , † 1943 in Paris ), was a French opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ).

Life

As a child, Cernay took piano and solfège lessons and initially wanted to become a pianist. Instead she studied singing at the Conservatoire de Paris and made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1925 as Euryclée in Gabriel Fauré's opera Pénélope . However, she had her great career at the Opéra-Comique , where she made her debut in Franco Alfanos Risurrezione in 1927 at the side of Mary Garden . After minor roles, she later sang Mallika in Léo Delibes ' Lakmé , the title roles in Ambroise Thomas ' Mignon and Georges Bizet's Carmen , Charlotte in Jules Massenet's Werther and Geneviève in Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande . In 1930 she took part in the world premiere of Omer Letorey's opera Le Sicilien .

Cerney also had great success at several French provincial theaters and at La Monnaie in Brussels . She gave guest appearances in North Africa, Switzerland, England, Ireland and Italy and appeared in 1939 at the Maggio musicale Florence in Maurice Ravel L'enfant et les sortilèges . She also sang the soprano part of Melisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande on French radio . She also became known as an important Bach interpreter.

Many of Cerney's recordings, especially from the years 1929 to 1933, have been preserved at Odeon. Columbia published a short version of Thomas' Mignon with her , HMV a complete recording of Pelléas et Mélisande , and Cerney also sang a complete recording of Bizet's Carmen.

Web links

• Germaine Cernay at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon