Pierre Mollet (23 March 1920,

Neuchâtel , neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier , twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...

- 27 October 2007) was a Canadian operatic

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

. He was born in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1974 and in 1979, he married the Canadian pianist Suzanne Blondin. Mollet was trained at the

Lausanne Conservatory The Haute école de musique de Lausanne (HEMU, known as Institute of Advanced Musical Studies prior to 2010, founded in 1861 as Conservatoire de Lausanne) is a Swiss music school located in Romandy, the French-speaking western part of Switzerland. ...

where he was a pupil of

Charles Panzéra Charles uguste LouisPanzéra (February 16, 1896 in Geneva – June 6, 1976 in Paris) was a Swiss operatic and concert baritone.''Piano ma non solo'', Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Anagramme Ed., 2012, Overview Panzéra's studies at the Paris Conser ...

. In 1946, he won second prize at the Geneva International Music Competition. The following year he began studies in music interpretation with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, France and became highly active performing as a concert soloist with orchestras in that city during the late 1940s and 1950s. From 1948 to 1962, he traveled throughout Northern Africa and France performing in concerts sponsored by the

Jeunesses Musicales International Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI) is the largest youth music non-governmental organisation in the world, created in Brussels, Belgium in 1945, with the mission to "enable young people to develop through music across all boundaries". JMI ha ...

. He also sang in concerts at a number of notable music festivals such as the Strasbourg Festival and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Mollet made his professional opera debut in 1952 portraying Pelléas in

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

's '' Pelléas et Mélisande'' at the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris 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 ...

; recording the part later that year with conductor Ernest Ansermet. He went on to sing that role for performances in cities throughout Europe and South America. He created the role of Eraste in Frank Martin's opera ''

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac'' is a three-act ''comédie-ballet''—a ballet interrupted by spoken dialogue—by Molière, first presented on 6 October 1669 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord by Molière's troupe of actors. ...

''; other significant roles include Albert in Massenet's '' Werther'' and Mercutio in Gounod's '' Roméo et Juliette''.

References

* 1920 births 2007 deaths Canadian operatic baritones 20th-century Swiss male opera singers 20th-century Canadian male opera singers Swiss emigrants to Canada Lausanne Conservatory alumni {{Switzerland-opera-singer-stub