Yvonne Gall (6 March 1885 – 21 August 1972) was a French

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

tic

lyric soprano A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano voice that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre that can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and ot ...

Biography

Gall was born on 6 March 1885 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

."Yvonne Gall Enlists with Pathé"
''Music Trades'' (September 20, 1919): 37. She trained at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

and made her debut in 1908 at the

Paris Opéra The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...

under

André Messager André Charles Prosper Messager (; 30 December 1853 – 24 February 1929) was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéra comique, opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage wo ...

as Woglinde in the Paris premiere of ''

Götterdämmerung ' (; ''Twilight of the Gods''), WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled (''The Ring of the Nibelung'', or ''The Ring Cycle'' or ''The Ring'' for short). It received its premiere at the on 17 August 1876, as ...

''. She went on to specialize in French lyric roles, particularly Marguerite, Manon, and

Thaïs Thaïs or Thais ( el, Θαΐς; flourished 4th century BC) was a famous Greek ''hetaira'' who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. Likely from Athens, she is most famous for instigating the burning of Persepolis. At the time, Thaï ...

, though she also sang some dramatic roles such as

Tosca ''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language drama ...

, Elsa, and eventually Isolde. She sang in the premieres of Raoul Gunsbourg's operas ''Le vieil aigle'' (1909), ''Le cantique des cantiques'' (1922) and ''Lysistrata'' (1923), and the American premiere of

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

's ''

L'heure espagnole ''L'heure espagnole'' is a French one-act opera from 1911, described as a ''comédie musicale'', with music by Maurice Ravel to a French libretto by Franc-Nohain, based on Franc-Nohain's 1904 play ('comédie-bouffe') of the same nameStoullig E. '' ...

''. She was married to the conductor

Henri Büsser Paul Henri Büsser (16 January 1872 – 30 December 1973) was a French classical composer, organist, and conductor. Biography Büsser was born in Toulouse of partly German ancestry. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1889, where he studied ...

. She died on 21 August 1972 in

Recordings

Gall took part in one of the first complete opera recordings made by Pathé under François Ruhlmann with the chorus of the Opéra-Comique: '' Roméo et Juliette'' (

Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

) (1912). This was remastered by Ward Marston for VAI CDs in 1994.

References

Sources

*Steane, J B (1992), 'Gall, Yvonne' in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', ed. Stanley Sadie (London)

External links

Biographical sketch with sample recording at Cantabile-Subito
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gall, Yvonne 1885 births 1972 deaths French operatic sopranos Singers from Paris Conservatoire de Paris alumni 20th-century French women opera singers