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Death of Mady Mesplé, great voice from the South, at 89 years old

2020-06-01T04:21:21.246Z


DISAPPEARANCE - The Toulouse soprano died yesterday at the age of 89. His sunny stamp and insatiable curiosity will have marked the lyrical world of the last century.


Fifteen days after baritone Gabriel Bacquier, another great voice from the South of France died yesterday, Saturday, May 30, in his native pink city! Madeleine Mesplé, known as "Mady", had kept when she spoke this soft accent singing on the banks of the Garonne. Everything at home, from her bursts of laughter bursting with sunshine to the transparency of her highs, passing by her elegance and her grace full of naturalness, breathed this air of the South which seemed to dress each of her vocalizations when she performed on stage .

Read also: Death of Gabriel Bacquier, legendary French baritone and stage beast

Because in more than thirty years of a career which will have taken her from Paris to New York, from Brussels to Brussels, the soprano colorature with haughty stamp will have conquered cinemas around the world. We are used to saying that it was in Belgium, at the Opéra de royal de Liège and then at the Monnaie de Bruxelles, that his career really began.

In the opera Lakmé by Delibes, in 1953. She marked with her personality and her crystalline voice the role of the Hindu Brahmin, as much as this one marked her. But it was first in Toulouse, where she was born on March 7, 1931, that the meeting was played out which determined the rest of her career. Coming from a modest family (his mother was secretary of a clothing store), but where the song would according to legend is part of the DNA, his parents having met in a choir, at the age of four years old, she started music. After her mother, as was often the case, had her gifts tested by a teacher. The examination is sufficiently conclusive for the little "Mady" to enter the conservatory three years later. Her predispositions for the piano, combined with a surprising love for music theory, could have been said to make her a brilliant pianist. Ultimately, the keyboard will decide. His teacher wants to send him to Paris. She is fourteen years old. Can't afford it. Decides, to finance these courses, to offer his services as a variety guide, with a technique that impresses more than one. It is by hearing him hum over his piano that some people advise him to start singing. She enrolled at the conservatory. His teacher is none other than Madame Izar, wife of the director of the Capitole de Toulouse theater. The latter, seduced by his voice, will introduce her to his contacts and open the doors of the Royal Opera of Liège to him.

His career is launched. She took off in 1962, when she replaced Joan Sutherland at the Edinburgh Festival in Donizetti's Lucia di Lamermoor . Its acute pests are now conquering the world. Lakmé, Zerbinetta, Olympia ... No scene can resist him. His incarnation of the Offenbach doll in Les Contes d'Hoffmann , directed by Patrice Chéreau at the Paris Opera, in 1975, will be remembered forever.

Many will also remember her as a great ambassador for the operetta, whose charms she did not hesitate to defend, but also the requirement long before it returned to the fore. She was also, thanks to her science of music theory, one of the first sopranos of her generation to embark on the adventure of contemporary music. Hans Werner Henze. But also Betsy Jolas, or even Paul Méfano. From the 1960s, many composers wrote for her, attracted as much by the potential of her highs as her reading skills. A curiosity and a thirst for repertoire that she will transmit to her students, from Bordeaux to Lyon, via Paris.

In fact, there are many singers today who claim their heritage. And many are paying tribute to him this May 31, like the baritone Ludovic Tézier, another great voice from the South. "Mady Mesplé has taken off, light as elegance ... A few days after Gaby Bacquier," he tweeted this morning.

Suffering from Parkinson's disease, Mady Mesplé had said goodbye definitively to the stage at the age of 70 in 2001, unable to cope with her problems of loss of balance. Her voice will remain forever in grace thanks to the agility of this clear and luminous breath which carried her so well.

Source: lefigaro

All life articles on 2020-06-01

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