Jean de Reszke
| Jean de Reszke | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Jan Mieczysław Reszke 14 January 1850 Warsaw, Poland |
| Died | 3 April 1925 (aged 75) Nice, France |
| Occupation | Tenor |
| Years active | 1874–1904 |
Jean de Reszke (14 January 1850 – 3 April 1925) was a Polish tenor who was a major male opera star of the late 19th century.
Jan Mieczysław Reszke was born into comfortable circumstances in Warsaw, Poland in 1850. Both his parents were Poles; his father was a state official and his mother a capable amateur singer, their house being a recognized musical centre. He sang as a boy in Warsaw's cathedral and later studied law at the city's university, but after a few years he abandoned his legal schooling to study at the Warsaw Conservatory with the Italian tenor Francesco Ciaffei, who trained him as a baritone. At age 19, Jean and his father visited Italy. In Venice he attended a performance in which the Italian baritone Antonio Cotogni sang. Cotogni's singing made such a profound impression on him that the young de Reszke followed him for the next five years wherever he performed—London, St. Petersburg, etc. During that time he was under Cotogni's tutelage, also as baritone.
In January 1874, he made his debut in Venice as Jan de Reschi (he later changed it to Jean de Reszke), undertaking the baritone part of Alfonso in a production of Donizetti's La favorite . The following April, he sang for the first time in London, performing at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and a little later in Paris, essaying an array of different baritone roles.
De Reszke displayed limitations as a baritone and he withdrew from the stage to allow for a further period of study, this time with Giovanni Sbriglia in Paris. Under Sbirgilia's tutelage, his voice gained remarkably in the freedom of its upper register. Accordingly, when he made his first operatic reappearance in 1879 (in Madrid), it was as a tenor, scoring a success in the title-role of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable. Indeed, the then 29-year-old de Reszke's immense fame as a singer dates from this moment.
He sang regularly at the Paris Opéra during the ensuing years of his vocal prime and, in 1887, was re-engaged by the management at London's Drury Lane, delivering among other things a notable Radamès in Verdi's Aida. The following year he was heard again in London, appearing no longer at Drury Lane but at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, lending his unique blend of dash and charm to the following roles: Vasco da Gama in L'Africaine and Raoul in Les Huguenots (both by Meyerbeer), Faust in Faust (by Gounod), Lohengrin in Lohengrin (by Wagner), Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera (by Verdi), and Radamès again.
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