Jésus Etcheverry was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 operatic conductor.

He began studying the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 while still very young, and played with diverse small orchestras to pay for his tuitions. At age 20, he was engaged by the Symphonic Orchestra in Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

, as first violinist, and shortly after began teaching at the Music Conservatory there. He spent the war years in Morocco, and began conducting in an improvised opera season, organised by French expatriate opera singers. The success was such that once the war over, he returned to France and became musical director at the opera house in Nancy, a post he held from 1947 until 1957. He also conducted the summer opera seasons in Luchon, Enghien

Enghien

Enghien is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2006 Enghien had a total population of 11,980. The total area is 40.59 km² which gives a population density of 295 inhabitants per km²....

 and Angoulême

Angoulême

-Main sights:In place of its ancient fortifications, Angoulême is encircled by boulevards above the old city walls, known as the Remparts, from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often narrow. Apart from the cathedral and the hôtel de ville, the...

.

In 1957, he was named first conductor at the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian 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 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

, where he remained until 1972. Beginning in 1966, he also conducted at the Palais Garnier

Palais Garnier

The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...

. He became musical director of the opera house in Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

 in 1972, and then took the musical direction of the opera house in Nancy in 1977.

Although his career was essentially spent in France, he did make guest appearances abroad, notably in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

 and Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, where he was much appreciated in the French repertory.

Among the premieres he conducted are; Marcel Landowski

Marcel Landowski

Marcel François Paul Landowski was a French composer, biographer and arts administrator.Born at Pont-l'Abbé, Finistère, Brittany, he was the son of French sculptor Paul Landowski and great-grandson of the composer Henri Vieuxtemps.As an infant he showed early musical promise, and studied piano...

's Le Feu (1956), Georges Delerue

Georges Delerue

Georges Delerue , was a French film composer who composed over 350 scores for cinema and television. He won numerous important awards including Rome Prize , Emmy Award , Genie Award , ACE Award and Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1979 for A...

's Le chevalier de neige (1957), and Jacques Chailley's Thyl de Flandres (1963).

He left valuable recordings of Gounod's Mireille

Mireille (opera)

Mireille is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Michel Carré after Frédéric Mistral's poem Mireio.-Composition history:...

, and Massenet's Thais

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...

and Werther

Werther

Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....

.

Sources

• Le dictionnaire des interprètes, Alain Pâris, (Editions Robert Laffont, 1989) ISBN 2-221-06660-X