Pierre Jélyotte was a French operatic tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

, particularly associated with works by Rameau, Lully, Campra, and Destouches.

Life and career

Born Pierre Grichon, he studied in Toulouse (voice, harpsichord, guitar, violin, composition) and made his stage debut in Paris as a singer at the Concert Spirituel

Concert Spirituel

The Concert Spirituel was one of the first public concert series in existence. The concerts began in Paris in 1725 and ended in 1790; later, concerts or series of concerts of the same name occurred in Paris, Vienna, London and elsewhere...

 in 1733.

That same year, he made his debut at the Opéra de Paris, in Les fêtes grecques et romaines, by François Colin de Blamont

François Colin de Blamont

François Colin de Blamont was a French composer of the Baroque era.Born at Versailles as François Colin, he served as a royal musician and was eventually ennobled in 1750, his surname becoming Colin de Blamont. He was the protegé of Michel-Richard de Lalande and succeeded the latter as Master of...

. He thereafter created several roles in opera by Jean Philippe Rameau, such as; Hippolyte et Aricie

Hippolyte et Aricie

Hippolyte et Aricie was the first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, which opened to great controversy at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris on October 1, 1733. The libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre. The opera takes the traditional form of a tragédie en...

, Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet consisting of a prologue and four entrées by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier...

, Dardanus

Dardanus (opera)

Dardanus is an opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The French libretto was by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère.-Performance history:It was first performed at the Académie de musique in Paris on November 19, 1739...

, and Zoroastre

Zoroastre

Zoroastre is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 5 December 1749 at the Opéra in Paris. The libretto is by Louis de Cahusac. Zoroastre was the fourth of Rameau's tragédies en musique to be staged and the last to appear during the composer's own lifetime...

, as well as in opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

, André Campra

André Campra

André Campra was a French composer and conductor.Campra was one of the leading French opera composers in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau. He wrote several tragédies en musique, but his chief claim to fame is as the creator of a new genre, opéra-ballet...

, and André Cardinal Destouches

André Cardinal Destouches

André Cardinal Destouches was a French composer best known for the opéra-ballet Les élémens....

. In all he sang some 150 roles, sometimes dressed as a woman http://odb-opera.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=211.

He often appeared at Court in Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...

, where he sang Daphnis in Daphnis et Alcinadure by Jean-Joseph de Mondonville

Jean-Joseph de Mondonville

Jean-Joseph de Mondonville , also known as Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, was a French violinist and composer. He was a younger contemporary of Jean-Philippe Rameau and enjoyed great success in his day...

, and Colin in Le devin du village

Le Devin du Village

Le devin du village is an interméde, a one-act opera by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who also wrote the libretto.It was first performed before the court at Fontainebleau on 18 October 1752 and at the Paris Opéra on 1 March 1753. King Louis XV loved the work so much that he offered Rousseau the great...

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

.

In 1755, he retired from the Opéra, singing in Castor et Pollux

Castor et Pollux

Castor et Pollux is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 24 October 1737 at the Académie royale de musique in Paris. The librettist was Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard, whose reputation as a salon poet it made. This was the third opera by Rameau and his second in the form of the...

, but continued singing at Fontainebleau until 1765. He then joined the "Orchestre du Roi" (the King's Orchestra) as a violinist and guitarist, and later joined the private orchestra of Madame de Pompadour

Madame de Pompadour

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour was a member of the French court, and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.-Biography:...

 as a cellist, and wrote a few "comédie-ballet", notably Zeliska.

Widely regarded as the "greatest singer of Europe" in his time, his voice type was then known as haute-contre

Haute-contre

The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:...

, his voice was by all account powerful, and in some ways prefigured a new vocal type closer to the tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 as we know it today, opening the doors to a new style of singing, as Adolphe Nourrit

Adolphe Nourrit

Adolphe Nourrit was a French operatic tenor, librettist, and composer. One of the most esteemed opera singers of the 1820s and 1830s, he was particularly associated with the works of Gioachino Rossini....

 and Gilbert Duprez

Gilbert Duprez

Gilbert Duprez was a French tenor, singing teacher and minor composer who famously pioneered the delivery of the operatic high C from the chest. He also created the role of Edgardo in the popular bel canto-era opera Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835.-Biography:Gilbert-Louis Duprez, to give his full...

would soon demonstrate.

Sources

• Le guide de l'opéra, les indispensables de la musique, R. Mancini & J-J. Rouvereux, (Fayard, 1986), ISBN 2-213-01563-6