Mézeray, Louis (-Charles-Lazare-Costard) de

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Mézeray, Louis (-Charles-Lazare-Costard) de

Mézeray, Louis (-Charles-Lazare-Costard) de, French baritone, conductor, and composer; b. Braunschweig, Nov. 25, 1810; d. Asnières, near Paris, April 1887. As a young man, he conducted theater orchs. in Strasbourg and elsewhere. At 17 he obtained the post of conductor at the Liège Theater, and at 20 he became conductor at the Court Theater in The Hague, where he brought out his heroic opera Guillaume de Nassau; subsequently he studied with Reicha in Paris. He again traveled as a theater conductor in France, and also appeared as a baritone. Finally, in 1843, he became chief conductor at the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux, and brought the standard of performance there to a very high level.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire