Introduction

Biography

Faure was a op­era­tic ba­ri­tone, art col­lect­or, and com­pos­er of a num­ber of class­ic­al songs.

A choir boy in his youth, he en­tered the Pa­ris Con­ser­va­tory in 1851. He made his op­era­tic de­but the fol­low­ing year at the Op­é­ra-Co­mique, as Pyg­ma­li­on in Vic­tor Massé’s Ga­la­thée.

He stayed at the Op­éra-Co­mique ov­er se­ven years, cre­at­ing the Mar­quis d’Eri­gny in Au­ber’s Ma­non Les­caut (1856) and Ho­ël in Mey­er­beer’s Le Par­don de Ploër­mel (1859, lat­er known as Di­no­rah), among se­ven pre­mieres at that house.

He de­buted at the Roy­al Op­e­ra House, Co­vent Gar­den, Lon­don, in 1860 as Ho­ël, and at the Pa­ris Op­e­ra in 1861. He would sing at the Op­e­ra ev­ery sea­son un­til 1869 and then again in 1872–76 and 1878. In ad­di­tion, he per­formed off and on in Lon­don un­til 1877 at ven­ues such as Her Ma­jes­ty’s The­a­tre and the The­a­tre Roy­al, Dru­ry Lane.

Among the ma­ny op­eras in which he ap­peared in Pa­ris were Mo­zart’s Don Gio­van­ni as well as L’É­toile du Nord, Les Hu­gue­nots and La Fa­vo­rite.

He al­so made his­to­ry by cre­at­ing se­ver­al im­port­ant op­era­tic roles writ­ten by pro­mi­nent comp­os­ers such as Gia­c­omo Mey­er­beer, Giu­sep­pe Ver­di and Am­broise Tho­mas. They in­clud­ed the lead­ing ba­ri­tone parts in L’Af­ri­caine, Don Car­los and Ham­let (in 1865, 1867 and 1868, re­spect­ive­ly).

Faure’s last stage ap­pear­anc­es are re­cord­ed as tak­ing place in Mar­sei­lles and Vi­chy in 1886.

Works

In ad­di­tion to sing­ing, Faure com­posed se­ver­al en­dur­ing songs, in­clud­ing Sanc­ta Ma­ria, Les Ra­meaux (The Palms), and Cru­ci­fix. The lat­ter two were re­cord­ed by En­ri­co Ca­ru­so, among oth­ers.