Solange Delmas

Solange Delmas was born under her real name of Valentine Trossevin at Nîmes on April 10th 1897, Her brilliant musical and vocal studies led her to the Paris Conservatoire where she effortlessly won all the first prizes. She was immediately engaged by the Opéra where she made her debut as Gilda in Rigoletto on January 24th 1934. For more than 20 years she shone in all the great roles for high soprano (alternating with Lily Pons and Vina Bovy as Gilda and with Mado Robin as Queen of the Night) and for lyric soprano (alternating as Gounod's Marguerite with Germaine Hoerner who also sang Aida and Fidelio) At the Palais Garnier she also sang with equal success Violetta, Ophélie, Rosina, the roles of the Fire and the Princess and the Nightingale in "L'Enfant et les Sortilegès", Constanze in "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail" and Lucia di Lammermoor. As was the custom in Paris, she sang all these roles in French, though on one evening in 1951when she was 54 she was asked at the last minute to replace an ailing Lily Pons who was due to sing Lucia in the original language. Certainly she had sung this version ten years earlier outside of Paris but never since. Relying upon her memory and her incomparable professionalism she survived this ordeal and won one of the greatest triumphs of her career on that evening. On October 3rd 1937 she made her debut at the Opéra-Comique as Rosina and went on with equal success to Lakmé, Mireille, Mimi, Olympia and Antonia in "Les Contes d'Hoffmann", the Fire and the Princess in "L'Enfant et les Sortilèges" and Micaëla (alongside Renée Gilly, Altéry and Singher) under the baton of Eugene Bigot at the gala performance for the centenary of Georges Bizet on October 25th 1938. If her career was essentially Parisian, she was also much in demand in the provinces, notably as Lucia di Lammermoor. During the season of 1948-9 she sang Gilda at Covent Garden with the tenor Ken Neate and the baritone Tom Williams. She retired from the Paris Opéra on May 7th 1953. Dedicating herself to teaching,she became the director of the Nice Conservatoire and stayed until 1961. She died at Eze on April 30th 1990 when she was just past her 93rd birthday.