Jean-François Delmas was a French bass-baritone

Bass-baritone

A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...

 who created roles in many French operas including Athanaël in Thaïs

Thaïs (opera)

Thaïs is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role...

.

Known professionally as Francisque Delmas, he was born in Lyons

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 and studied at the Paris Conservatoire before making his debut in 1886 as Saint-Bris in Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots

Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....

at the Paris Opéra

Paris Opera

The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...

. He remained with that company until 1927 and rarely sang outside France. He was known for the power and evenness of his voice with a sonorous quality in the bass range and an extended upper register, which allowed him to sing classic baritone roles such as Iago

Otello

Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....

. His recordings for G&T

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

, Pathé

Pathé Records

Pathé Records was a France-based international record label and producer of phonographs, active from the 1890s through the 1930s.- Early years :...

, Zonophone

Zonophone

Zonophone, early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company, but was applied to the records and machines sold by Seaman from 1899-1900 to 1903...

, Fonotipia

Fonotipia Records

Fonotipia Records, or Dischi Fonotipia, was an Italian gramophone record label established in 1904 with a charter to record the art of leading opera singers and some other celebrity musicians, chiefly violinists. Fonotipia continued to operate into the electrical recording era, which commenced in...

, Odéon, and Opéra-Saphir are highly sought after by collectors. Delmas died in Saint-Alban-de-Montbel

Saint-Alban-de-Montbel

Saint-Alban-de-Montbel is a commune in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.-World heritage site:It is home to one or more prehistoric pile-dwelling settlements that are part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage...

 (near Chambéry

Chambéry

Chambéry is a city in the department of Savoie, located in the Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France.It is the capital of the department and has been the historical capital of the Savoy region since the 13th century, when Amadeus V of Savoy made the city his seat of power.-Geography:Chambéry...

) at the age of 72, and is buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent de Montmartre

Saint-Vincent Cemetery

Saint-Vincent Cemetery at 6, rue Lucien-Gaulard in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France was opened on January 5, 1831. It was Montmartre's second cemetery, built after the Cimetière du Calvaire had been filled...

 with his wife, the soprano Blanche d'Ervilly (1853-1920).

Sources

• Landru, Philippe, Cimetière Saint-Vincent de Montmartre, Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs, 2009
• Giroud, Vincent, Liner Notes: Meyerbeer on Record 1899-1913, Marston Records, 2009
• Steane, J. B., "Delmas, Jean-François" in Laura Williams Macy (ed.), The Grove Book of Opera Singers, Oxford University Press, 2008, P. 115. ISBN 0195337654
• Warrack, John Hamilton and West, Ewan (eds.), "Delmas. Francisque", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 121-122. ISBN 0192800280

External links

• Historic Opera – Postcards showing Delmas as Phur in Xavier Leroux
  Xavier Leroux
  Xavier Henry Napoleón Leroux was a French composer.Leroux was the son of a military bandleader. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Jules Massenet and Théodore Dubois, and won the Prix de Rome in 1885 with the cantata Endymion...
  
  's Astarté and in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni
  Don Giovanni
  Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
  
  
• Audio file on Archive.org – Delmas singing "Benediction des Poignards" ("Blessing of the Daggers") from Les Huguenots
  Les Huguenots
  Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....