Denise Duval

Denise Duval (Paris, 23 October 1921 – Bex, 25 January 2016) was a French soprano, best known for her performances in the works of Francis Poulenc on stage and in recital. During an international career, Duval created the roles of Thérèse in Les mamelles de Tirésias, Elle in La voix humaine, and excelled in the role of Blanche de la Force in Dialogues of the Carmelites, leaving recordings of these and several other of her main roles.

Duval attended the Collège de Libourne, appearing in the play Les Plus beaux yeux du monde by Jean Sarment. Her father, a colonel, allowed her to enrol in the theatre classes at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux, where she was spotted by the director, Gaston Poulet, who got her into the vocal classes. From there she made her debut in Cavalleria rusticana at the Grand Theatre de Bordeaux in 1942, her Santuzza described by the Liberté du Sud-Ouest critic as “painful, fierce, tragic”, leading to other principal roles in Bordeaux.

In Paris she was disappointed at her audition at the Opéra, but was soon engaged at the Folies-Bergère, and sang in the clothed revue, gaining more stage experience; she later commented "Aux Folies, j'ai tout appris!". At her second try for an operatic position Duval was engaged for L'Aiglon (which she never sang), but made her debut at the Opéra-Comique in the title role of Madame Butterfly on 5 March 1947. The same year she was discovered by Poulenc, rehearsing Cio-Cio-san the composer immediately recognizing her as the artist he was seeking for his first opera Les Mamelles de Tirésias that June; she worked closely with Poulenc for the rest of his life.

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