Mady Mesplé facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mady Mesplé
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Mesplé in 1975
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Madeleine Mesplé
7 March 1931 Toulouse, France
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| Died | 30 May 2020 (aged 89) Toulouse, France
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| Occupation | Operatic coloratura soprano |
| Years active | 1953–1985 |
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Mady Mesplé (born March 7, 1931 – died May 30, 2020) was a famous French opera singer. She was known as the best coloratura soprano of her time in France. A coloratura soprano is a singer who can sing very high notes and perform difficult musical patterns. Many people saw her as the next Mado Robin. Her most famous role around the world was Lakmé in the opera Lakmé by Delibes.
Mady Mesplé sang professionally for over 30 years. She performed in many different types of shows, from light operas (operettas) to modern musical pieces. After she stopped performing on stage, she began teaching music. She was known for her strong singing skills, unique musical style, and lovely presence on stage. When she got Parkinson's disease in the mid-1990s, she wrote a book about her life and how she dealt with the illness.
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Mady Mesplé's Early Life and Training
Madeleine Mesplé was born in Toulouse, France, on March 7, 1931. She came from a regular family. Her father, Pierre, was an accountant, and her mother, Yvonne, was a secretary.
Mady started learning music when she was only four years old. Her mother noticed her talent. A teacher also agreed she had a special gift. Because of this, Mady went to the music conservatory in her hometown when she was seven. There, she studied both piano and singing. She graduated with a top award, a gold medal. For a short time, she played the piano in a local dance band. Later, she moved to Paris to take more singing lessons with the French singer Janine Micheau.
Starting Her Opera Career
Mady Mesplé made her first professional performance in Liège, Belgium, in January 1953. She sang the main role in the opera Lakmé by Delibes. This role became very special to her. She sang it about 145 times throughout her career. Lakmé was also the role she sang for her first performance at La Monnaie in Brussels in 1954.
She quickly became well-known for singing many classic French opera roles. Some of these included Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Philline in Mignon, and Leila in Les pêcheurs de perles. She also sang Juliette in Roméo et Juliette and Ophélie in Hamlet. Other important roles were the main characters in Dinorah and Manon, and Sophie in Werther.
Performing on Famous Stages
In 1956, Mady Mesplé performed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. She sang as Zémire in Grétry's Zémire et Azor. In the same year, she sang at the Opéra-Comique for the first time, again as Lakmé. Her first performance at the Palais Garnier was in 1958. There, she sang as Constance in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.
In 1960, she took over the role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor from the famous singer Joan Sutherland. Mady Mesplé also sang many Italian opera roles. These included Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. She also sang Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale and Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. She performed a few German roles too, like the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
International Performances
Mady Mesplé had a very successful career outside of France. She performed at many famous theaters around the world. She sang at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. She also appeared at the Royal Opera House in London, England. In Italy, she sang at La Scala in Milan.
She performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, USA, where she sang the role of Gilda. She also sang at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she performed as Olympia.
Exploring New Music
During the 1960s, Mady Mesplé often appeared on French television. She also started to explore music by modern composers. For example, Charles Chaynes wrote his Four Poems of Sappho especially for her. In 1963, she was Kitty in the first French performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Last Savage.
She was also the first to sing the French version of Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers in 1965. The famous conductor Pierre Boulez chose Mady Mesplé for his performances of Schoenberg's Jacob's Ladder.
In the 1970s, she added operettas to her performances. Operettas are lighter, shorter operas, often with spoken parts. She especially enjoyed the works of Jacques Offenbach. Some of these included La Vie parisienne, Orphée aux enfers, and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. She often performed with Régine Crespin in these shows.
Retirement and Teaching
Mady Mesplé stopped performing on stage in 1985. After that, she began teaching music. She taught at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Music Conservatory of Lyon. Even after retiring from the main stage, she continued to give special singing performances (recitals) until the early 1990s.
Mady Mesplé made many recordings during her career. These included full operas, operettas, and French songs (mélodies). She recorded some less common works like Auber's Fra Diavolo and Manon Lescaut. She also recorded her signature role, Lakmé, with Charles Burles and Roger Soyer.
Mady Mesplé was known for her excellent singing technique and beautiful stage presence. Her voice was special because of its quick vibrato (a slight wavering sound), clear notes, and how she could sing very high notes easily. After she passed away, the French singer Ludovic Tézier said that she "flew away, lightly as elegance."
In the mid-1990s, Mady Mesplé began to suffer from Parkinson's disease. This led her to work closely with the "Association France Parkinson," a group that helps people with the disease. She also wrote a book called La Voix du Corps (which means "The Voice of the Body"). In the book, she wrote about her singing career and how her illness developed. She passed away on May 30, 2020, in her hometown of Toulouse.
Awards and Honors
Mady Mesplé received many important awards and honors throughout her life:
- 2001: Officer of the Legion of Honour
- 2009: Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite
- 2011: Commander of the Legion of Honour
- 2011: Prize in honorem from the Académie Charles-Cros for her entire career
- 2015: Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour
- 2019: Grand Cross of the Ordre national du Mérite
