Zulmé Dabadie

Zulmé Dabadie (born Zulmée Leroux, 15 October 1795 – 21 November 1877) was a French opera singer active at the Paris Opéra, where she sang both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles. Among the roles she created were Jemmy in Rossini's ''William Tell'' and Sinaïde in his ''Moïse et Pharaon''. Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer and trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, she made her stage debut at the Paris Opéra in 1821 and remained with that company until her retirement from the stage in 1835. After her retirement she taught singing in Paris, where she died at the age of 82. She was married to the French baritone Henri-Bernard Dabadie.

Early life and training

She was born Zulmée Leroux on 15 October 1795 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where she began her music studies. Her father was Benoît Leroux, a musician, and her mother was Louise Pallasalle. Her younger sister, Clara Leroux (born 1806 in Boulogne-sur-Mer), also became a singer, who after her marriage was known as Mme Lavry and debuted at the Opéra as the Lady-in-waiting to Isabelle in the 1831 premiere of Meyerbeer's opera ''Robert le diable''.

Zulmé Leroux enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris on 9 July 1814, made rapid progress in solfège and continued her studies in singing under Charles-Henri Plantade. She was awarded first prize in singing and declamation in 1819.

Career at the Opéra

She made her stage debut under the name Zulmé Leroux at the Paris Opéra on 31 January 1821 as Antigone in Sacchini's ''Œdipe à Colone''. On 23 March of that year she was offered a permanent position at the Opéra as a cover (''remplacement'') for the primadonnas Caroline Branchu and Caroline Grassari, singing their roles when they were unavailable. When Branchu retired, Dabadie was promoted to the first rank.

On 6 November 1821, she married one of the Opéra's leading baritones, Bernard Dabadie, and was billed as Mme Dabadie when she created the title role of Anton Reicha's ''Sapho'' on 16 December 1822. She and her husband often appeared together in the premieres of the same operas, such as Rossini's ''Moïse et Pharaon'' (26 March 1827) and ''William Tell'' (3 August 1829). The couple had several children, including a son Victor (1823–1853) and a daughter Claire (born 19 January 1837), who was also a musician prior to her marriage to the architect on 13 June 1866.

Zulmé Dabadie's first big success in a major role at the Opéra came in August 1825 as Julia in Spontini's ''La vestale''. In June of that year she had sung the role of The Spirit of France in Boieldieu's ''Pharamond''. The opera was a failure at its premiere, which was attended by the recently crowned King Charles X, and only the final tableau with Dabadie was singled out for praise. She appeared on a cloud dressed in a gold breastplate and helmet and carrying a banner emblazoned with the fleur-de-lis. She then gestured to the back curtain, which parted to reveal a receding line of illustrious French kings ending with the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Palace on the far horizon.

Dabadie went on to create the roles of Sinaïde in ''Moïse et Pharaon'' (1827), Lady Macbeth in Chélard's ''Macbeth'' (1827), Jemmy in ''William Tell'' (1829), Mizaël in '' La tentation'' (1832), and Arvedson in '' Gustave III'' (1833). Her other leading roles at the Opéra included Eurydice in ''Orphée et Eurydice'', Iphigénie in ''Iphigénie en Tauride'', Pamyra in '' Le siège de Corinthe'', Adèle in ''Le comte Ory'', Amazily in ''Fernand Cortez'', and Églantine in the first French performance of ''Euryanthe''. Dabadie's voice was beautiful and well-schooled, with a purity of style and diction, but Laure Cinti-Damoreau somewhat eclipsed her fame when she joined the company in 1826. Several of the leading roles in Paris Opéra premieres were given to Cinti-Damoreau, with Dabadie either in secondary roles (as in ''Moïse et Pharaon'' and ''William Tell'') or singing Cinti-Damoreau's roles in revival performances (such as ''Le siège de Corinthe'' and ''Le comte Ory'').

Other activities

From 1821 to 1830, Dabadie was also a principal singer in the Chapelle royale of Louis XVIII and later Charles X. She had been engaged by the Duc de La Châtre in 1821 after he heard her performance at Notre Dame Cathedral in a ''Te Deum'' marking the baptism of the Count of Chambord. In addition to her appearances at the Opéra and the Chapelle royale, Dabadie regularly sang in the concert series held by the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire and twice performed cantatas in the final round of the Prix de Rome composition competition. In 1827 she sang Jean-Baptiste Guiraud's version of ''La Mort d'Orphée'', the first-prize winner. Berlioz hired her to sing his version of ''Hermine'' for the 1828 competition and was awarded the second prize. He hired her again in 1829 for ''La mort de Cléopâtre''. She sang in the qualification round, but a last-minute rehearsal for the premiere of ''William Tell'' prevented her from singing it in the final round. Instead, she sent her sister Clara, who was still a student at the Paris Conservatory and was overwhelmed by the difficulty of the score. Berlioz failed to win either first or second prize.

Retirement and later life

Dabadie and her husband retired from the stage in 1835, after which they both taught singing in Paris. Writing in 1861, François-Joseph Fétis attributed her relatively early retirement to a serious deterioration of her voice and claimed that this early vocal decline was due to the "deplorable" training system at the Paris Conservatory during the years she studied there. This assessment was strongly disputed by Jacques-Léopold Heugel in his obituary of Dabadie published in ''Le Ménestrel''. According to Heugel, her vocal powers were undiminished at the time of her retirement. He wrote that Dabadie had been schooled and excelled in works of the earlier classical composers such as Gluck, Sacchini, and Spontini and saw no future for herself in the newer repertoire that was coming into vogue at the Opéra.

Her husband, Bernard Dabadie, died in 1853. Zulmé died at her home on the rue Louis-le-Grand in Paris on 21 November 1877 at the age of 82. Following her funeral at the Église de la Madeleine, she was buried next to her husband in Montmartre Cemetery.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dabadie, Zulme
1795 births
1877 deaths
French operatic sopranos
French operatic mezzo-sopranos
People from Boulogne-sur-Mer
Conservatoire de Paris alumni
Burials at Montmartre Cemetery