Souzay, Gérard (real name, Gérard Marcel Tisserand)
Souzay, Gérard (real name, Gérard Marcel Tisserand)
Souzay, Gérard (real name, Gérard Marcel Tisserand ), distinguished French baritone; b. Angers, Dec. 8, 1918. He studied voice with Pierre Bernac, Claire Croiza, Vanni Marcoux, and Lotte Lehmann, and was a student at the Paris Cons. (1940–45). He made his recital debut in Paris in 1945, his U.S. debut in a recital at N.Y.’s Town Hall in 1950, and his operatic debut as Count Robinson in Cimarosa’s II Matrimonio segreto at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1957. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro on Jan. 21, 1965. In subsequent years, he toured extensively, mainly as a recitalist. In 1985 he joined the faculty of the Ind. Univ. School of Music in Bloomington; taught at the Univ. of Tex. in Austin in 1986. Souzay won renown as a concert artist; after Bernac, he was esteemed as the foremost interpreter of French art songs; equally acclaimed were his performances of German lieder, which received encomiums from German critics and audiences.
Bibliography
M. Morris, The Recorded Performances of G. S.: A Discography (N.Y., 1991).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire