Denise Duval

Denise Duval (23 October 192125 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 and 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.

Life and career Duval was born in Paris, and 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. 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.

Outside France, Duval sang in Italy (La Scala), the Edinburgh Festival, The Colon in Buenos Aires – and later for her also La Dame de Monte-Carlo, in 1961.

Following incorrect administration of cortisone treatment, she retired in 1965 from performance and moved to the home her husband had built in Switzerland, while retaining some teaching at the École française de musique.

In 2003, a biography by Bruno Bérenguer, Denise Duval, was published by Symétrie.

Roles created Thérèse in Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias (3 June 1947) Elle in Poulenc's La voix humaine (6 February 1959) Blanche de la Force in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites (French version, 21 June 1957)

Other contemporary works included Der Tod des Grigori Rasputin by Nikolas Nabokov (Cologne, 1959), Les Amants captifs by Pierre Capdevielle (Bordeaux, 1960) and Le Serment by Tansman (Nice, 1963). From French radio broadcasts, recordings of Phryné by Saint-Saens in 1960 and Geneviève de Brabant by Offenbach in 1956 (both title roles) have been issued, while her Périchole of 1950 has yet to be released.

A DVD entitled Francis Poulenc & Friends, of archive French television broadcasts, includes operatic excerpts and two melodies sung by Duval with Poulenc accompanying, in 1959.

In 1970, Dominique Delouche filmed Duval in the role of Elle in 'playback' to her 1960 audio recording of La Voix humaine; in 1998, Duval gave a master class on the role on the stage of the Opéra-Comique with Sophie Fournier accompanied by Alexandre Tharaud at the piano.