Gabriel Bacquier
Gabriel Bacquier was a leading 20th century baritone, especially in roles in his native French. He was noted for his sophisticated and natural acting style, his smooth, warm voice, and his remarkable endurance.
Bacquier was born on May 17, 1924, in Béziers, France. His studies at the Paris Conservatoire were unusually successful: he won three first prizes in student voice competitions there, and as a result, he quickly obtained a regular operatic job, joining the Compagnie Lyrique in 1950. From this privately owned opera company, he moved in 1952 to join the company of La Monnaie, the main opera house in Brussels. He returned to Paris in 1955 to join the Opéra-Comique in 1956. Two years later, he joined the Opéra de Paris, debuting there as Germont, Sr., in La Traviata.
He gained a reputation as a serious, reliable singer, willing and able to take both comic and serious roles, and parts ranging from supporting characters to leads. Although he had a wide range, he was especially effective in the more lyric baritone parts and was one of the leading Mozart singers of his generation, yet he was able to convincingly sing such dramatic parts as Simon Boccanegra and Tsar Boris Godunov. He began to make appearances abroad in the 1960s, particularly in England, where he debuted as the Count in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in 1962 and as Riccardo in Bellini's I Puritani in 1964. The same year he first sang at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he also became a favorite performer, frequently appearing on the national Saturday broadcasts.
In his 50s, when many singers are considering whether they have enough technique left to continue in their career, Bacquier notably improved, gaining power and expressivity in his voice. At the same time, he refined his acting technique, becoming known for avoiding the stock operatic gestures meant to portray villainy or the buffoonery used in comic roles. Thus, his characters had a quality of realism that made their evil, heroism, wit, or foolishness seem natural and thus more effective. This particularly showed itself in his four differentiated portrayals in the "adversary" roles of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
In addition to his Mozart roles (especially the Count), his "signature role" was that of Scarpia in Tosca, which he played with suave, even charming, external manners that made his underlying evil even more frightening. He was the leading baritone for French opera and for Italian operas written originally in French, such as Rossini's Guillaume Tell and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. He appeared in no fewer than three complete stereo recordings of Les Contes d'Hoffmann, other operas by Offenbach, and revivals of such once-neglected French operas as Chabrier's L'Étoile, Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-bleu, Gounod's Mireille, Massenet's Don Quichotte, and Bizet's La Jolie Fille de Perth.
He was also a fine interpreter of French chanson in recital, particularly the songs of Satie, Ravel, and de Severac. In the 1990s, when he was in his seventies, he scored a notable success as The King of Clubs in the Lyon Opera's French production of Prokofiev's Love of Three Oranges under the baton of Kent Nagano, a production also made into a highly acclaimed recording. In 2008, Bacquier released an album of songs by Pierre Louki. Bacquier died in the Manche department commune of Lestre, in Normandy, on May 13, 2020.
© Joseph Stevenson /TiVo
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Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffman
Dame Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestre De La Suisse Romande, Richard Bonynge
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 1972
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Varney: Les mousquetaires au couvent (Mono Version)
Colette Riedinger, Gabriel Bacquier, Pierre Blanc, Louis Musy
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1957
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Cools: Valses de Vienne, opérette en 3 actes, extraits (Mono Version)
Gabriel Bacquier, Bernard Alvi, Janine Ervil, Felix Nuvolone
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1957
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Lecocq: La fille de madame Angot (Mono Version)
Colette Riedinger, Bernard Alvi, Louis Musy, Gabriel Bacquier
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Chabrier: L'étoile
John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Gabriel Bacquier
Klassiek - Released by Warner Classics on 7 sep. 1987
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Delibes: Lakmé
Dame Joan Sutherland, Gabriel Bacquier, Emile Belcourt, Jane Berbié, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte‐Carlo, Richard Bonynge
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 1968
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Léo Delibes : Lakmé - Highlights
Dame Joan Sutherland, Alain Vanzo, Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte‐Carlo, Richard Bonynge
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 1968
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel: Mélodies
Teresa Berganza, Felicity Lott, Mady Mesplé, Jessye Norman, Gabriel Bacquier, José Van Dam
Klassiek - Released by Warner Classics on 1 jan. 1984
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann - Highlights
Plácido Domingo, Dame Joan Sutherland, Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestre De La Suisse Romande, Richard Bonynge
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 1972
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Otello
Carlo Cossutta, Margaret Price, Gabriel Bacquier, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
De la melodie a l'operette
Klassiek - Released by Universal Music Division Decca Records France on 1 jan. 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Grands airs d’opéra. Tosca, Faust, Werther, Manon, Don Juan, Otello
Régine Crespin, Gabriel Bacquier, Alain Vanzo
Klassiek - Released by Universal Music Division Decca Records France on 1 jan. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'art français du chant, Vol. 2
Martha Angelici, Alain Vanzo, Gabriel Bacquier
Klassiek - Released by Forlane on 26 nov. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Une anthologie de la mélodie française (Mono Version)
Gabriel Bacquier, Jean Laforge
Klassiek - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Don Giovanni - highlights
Gabriel Bacquier, Dame Joan Sutherland, Pilar Lorengar, Marilyn Horne, English Chamber Orchestra, Richard Bonynge
Klassiek - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 jan. 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Récital de mélodies
Klassiek - Released by Ina Archives on 28 feb. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Grands Airs d'Opéra
Klassiek - Released by Universal Music Division Decca Records France on 1 jan. 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'art du chant, vol. 2 (Mono Version)
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
La troupe de l'Opéra de Paris: Gabriel Bacquier (Live au Théâtre des Champs Elysées)
Opera - Released by Malibran on 1 jan. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Prokofiev: L'amour des trois oranges
Kent Nagano, Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon, Catherine Dubosc, Gabriel Bacquier
Klassiek - Released by Warner Classics on 1 jan. 1989
Gramophone Record of the Year16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gabriel Bacquier chante Pierre Louki
Franse chansons - Released by Frémeaux & associés on 1 jan. 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo