René Maison
Encyclopedia
René Maison was a prominent Belgian opera
tic tenor
, particularly associated with heroic roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.
, Belgium, he studied in Brussels
and Paris. He made his debut in Geneva
in 1920, as Rodolfo in La bohème
. He also appeared in Nice
and Monte Carlo
, before making his debut in 1927, at the Opéra-Comique
in Paris, as Prince Dimitri in Franco Alfano
's Risurrezione
, opposite the soprano Mary Garden
. His other roles there included Don José
, Mylio
, Werther
, Canio
, Cavaradossi
, and Jean Gaussin in Massenet's Sapho
.
He made his Paris Opéra debut at the Palais Garnier
in 1929, in Henry Février
's Monna Vanna. He sang there regularly until 1940, as Faust
, Lohengrin
, Radames
, Siegmund
and Samson. In 1934, he created there the role of Eumolphe in Stravinsky's Perséphone
.
Maison also enjoyed a successful international career, appearing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
(1928-40), the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1934-37), the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden
, in London (1931-36), and the Metropolitan Opera
in New York. His Met debut occurred on February 3, 1936, as Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
. In eight seasons with the Met he sang Don José, Lohengrin, Samson, Julien
, Florestan
, Hoffmann
, des Grieux
and Herodes
, among other roles.
In 1943, he began teaching at the Juilliard School
in New York, and from 1957 until his death, at the Chalof School in Boston. Among his pupils was the baritone turned dramatic tenor Ramon Vinay
.
Maison died in Mont-d'Or, France, aged 66. He was, in terms of birth dates, the middle member of a triumverate of outstanding Belgian operatic tenors who reached their peak in the period between the two world wars. The others were the lyric-dramatic tenor Fernand Ansseau (1890-1972) and the lyric tenor Andre D'Arkor (1901-1971).
Maison possessed a powerful and penetrating voice, capable of surprising nuance, and an impressive stage presence (he stood 6 feet 4 inches tall). Posterity is fortunate that he made some commercial, 78-rpm discs of French operatic arias which demonstrate his considerable merits as a singer.
His voice also can be heard on several important recordings of historic radio broadcasts. The best-known of these live performances are his marvelously funny, light-hearted Loge
in Das Rheingold
(conducted by Artur Bodanzky
, 1937), his passionately dramatic Florestan in Bruno Walter
's 1941 Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Fidelio
, and as the tenor soloist in Arturo Toscanini
's 1941 Buenos Aires performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, particularly associated with heroic roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.
Career
Born in FrameriesFrameries
Frameries is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On June 21st 2011 Frameries had a total population of about 20,652...
, Belgium, he studied in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and Paris. He made his debut in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
in 1920, as Rodolfo in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. He also appeared in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
and Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, before making his debut in 1927, at the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
in Paris, as Prince Dimitri in Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano was an Italian composer and pianist. Best known today for his opera Risurrezione and above all for having completed Puccini's opera Turandot in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime.- Biography :He was born in Posillipo, Naples...
's Risurrezione
Risurrezione
Risurrezione , is an opera or dramma in four acts by Franco Alfano. The libretto was written by Cesare Hanau based on the novel "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy...
, opposite the soprano Mary Garden
Mary Garden
Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
. His other roles there included Don José
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, Mylio
Le roi d'Ys
is an opera in three acts and five tableaux by the French composer Édouard Lalo, to a libretto by Édouard Blau, based on the old Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys, which was, according to the legend, the capital of the kingdom of Cornouaille. It premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris on 7...
, Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, Canio
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, Cavaradossi
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, and Jean Gaussin in Massenet's Sapho
Sapho (opera)
Sapho is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Cain and Arthur Bernède, based on the novel of the same name by Alphonse Daudet. It was first performed at the Opéra Comique in Paris on November 27, 1897 with Emma Calvé as Fanny Legrand.It is a charming and effective...
.
He made his Paris Opéra debut at the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
in 1929, in Henry Février
Henry Février
Henry Février was a French composer.-Biography:Henry Février studied at the Paris Conservatoire where his teachers included Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. He also took private lessons with André Messager...
's Monna Vanna. He sang there regularly until 1940, as Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
, Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, Radames
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, Siegmund
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and Samson. In 1934, he created there the role of Eumolphe in Stravinsky's Perséphone
Perséphone (Stravinsky)
Perséphone is a musical work for speaker, solo singers, chorus, dancers and orchestra with music by Igor Stravinsky and a libretto by André Gide....
.
Maison also enjoyed a successful international career, appearing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
(1928-40), the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1934-37), the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, in London (1931-36), and the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York. His Met debut occurred on February 3, 1936, as Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
. In eight seasons with the Met he sang Don José, Lohengrin, Samson, Julien
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
, Florestan
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
, des Grieux
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
and Herodes
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
, among other roles.
In 1943, he began teaching at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
in New York, and from 1957 until his death, at the Chalof School in Boston. Among his pupils was the baritone turned dramatic tenor Ramon Vinay
Ramón Vinay
Ramón Vinay was a famous Chilean operatic tenor with a powerful, dramatic voice. He is probably best remembered for his appearances in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's tragic opera Otello....
.
Maison died in Mont-d'Or, France, aged 66. He was, in terms of birth dates, the middle member of a triumverate of outstanding Belgian operatic tenors who reached their peak in the period between the two world wars. The others were the lyric-dramatic tenor Fernand Ansseau (1890-1972) and the lyric tenor Andre D'Arkor (1901-1971).
Maison possessed a powerful and penetrating voice, capable of surprising nuance, and an impressive stage presence (he stood 6 feet 4 inches tall). Posterity is fortunate that he made some commercial, 78-rpm discs of French operatic arias which demonstrate his considerable merits as a singer.
His voice also can be heard on several important recordings of historic radio broadcasts. The best-known of these live performances are his marvelously funny, light-hearted Loge
Loge
Loge may refer to:Geography*Loge-Fougereuse, a village and commune in the Vendée department of France*La Loge, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department of France*La Loge-Pomblin, a commune in the Aube department of France...
in Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
(conducted by Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner.- Career :...
, 1937), his passionately dramatic Florestan in Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
's 1941 Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, and as the tenor soloist in Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
's 1941 Buenos Aires performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Sources
- Dictionaire des interprètres, Alain Pâris, (Éditions Robert Laffont, 1989) ISBN 2-221-06660-X