Reunion
Reunion: Renée Doria
Portrait photographed by Pierre Mandereau at the soprano's home in La Celle sur Morin, France
© Pierre Mandereau 2010
Renée Doria is best known to opera buffs for her classic recordings of Massenet's Thaïs and Gounod's Mireille, both conducted by Jesus Etcheverry, as well as for being Olympia in the historic 1948 recording of Les Contes d'Hoffmann, conducted by André Cluytens. At the height of her powers, this soprano combined mid-range warmth and power with brilliant coloratura and precision above the staff. Her sure technique guaranteed a career of startling longevity, from her first appearances in the early 1940s — which included the Hoffmann heroines opposite the legendary villains of Vanni-Marcoux in Strasbourg — right up to a final recording of mélodies in 1993. During this impressive career, the soprano appeared in a staggering seventy-six roles onstage and still more in concert, including rarities such as Massenet's Sapho, a complete version of which she recorded as late as 1978.
Doria's husband, Guy Dumazert, cofounded Malibran Music, a treasure trove of vintage French singing, and Doria's picture-postcard former farmhouse to the east of Paris remains a busy center of activity for the company. Now in her ninetieth year, Madame Doria remains alert and svelte, as if the down-to-earth technical security that informed her singing had also magically preserved her physique; we chatted in French over a glass of excellent champagne from a nearby estate.
OPERA NEWS: You sang for more than fifty years, with a technique that was totally secure. That is in itself quite a remarkable achievement.
RENÉE DORIA: I began very young, when I was about sixteen.
ON: And how did you acquire this extraordinary technique?
RD: A tenor called Umberto Valdarmini really saved me. I was in trouble in Perpignan, where my teacher was a remarkable musician who played a lot with Casals during the war. But being a fine musician isn't the same as being a singing teacher — far from it. Valdarmini was an Italian tenor, but unfortunately he was disabled and walked with a limp, so he couldn't have a stage career. I listened to some of his pupils, and I thought, "He's the teacher for me." I worked with him for several years, and I owe him so much.
ON: I know that you also admired Ninon Vallin.
RD: She was remarkable — an extraordinary performer and a charming woman.
ON: How was she as a teacher?
RD: Well, I don't think she knew very well how to explain things. She was obsessed by breathing. But everybody has their idiosyncrasies.
ON: Your voice is so well suited to all those French roles, such as Mireille, Manon and Marguerite, which demand both coloratura and a certain dramatic weight.
RD: I see myself very much as a French singer. Of course, I love Italian singing as well, but Manon, Mireille and similar repertoire have the really great French roles that attracted me. They were written at a time when French singing flourished. There were many great singers at the time who had extraordinary virtuosity that you don't find any more today. For example, the great Emma Calvé, who sang Carmen, also sang Ophélie in Hamlet!
ON: I know you don't always admire young French singers of today, but there are certainly more on the international scene nowadays than there were a few decades ago.
RD: You have to admit they are often second-rate.
ON: Why do you think that is?
RD: The teachers, some of whom never even had careers themselves.
ON: I think there is a problem today with French diction. Often one doesn't understand anything that is being sung unless there are titles.
RD: Vallin was a real stickler for that. She had quite extraordinary diction. Consonants in France no longer exist nowadays, and yet they are fundamental to voice production.
ON: Many talented young French singers today are trained to supply the growing fascination for early music. You sang in Maurice Lehmann's groundbreaking production of Rameau's Les Indes Galantes at the Paris Opera in the 1950s, which in some ways began the rediscovery of this repertoire.
RD: Yes, but it was Rameau revisited by Busser! It was a magnificent show, and one which allowed you to see all the stars of the Opéra and Ballet of the time. It was Maurice Lehmann who had engaged me for the first time at the Paris Opera, as the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, which I sang there in 1947. The first time I auditioned at the Palais Garnier, Reynaldo Hahn, who had just rehearsed a concert with Lily Pons, arrived with his big cape and said to Lehmann, "Ah, you are going to engage Madame Doria. That's very good, very good."
ON: You mentioned Lily Pons, and the differences between you are interesting, because you have a coloratura with a big, supple middle voice, whereas she had a voice that concentrated on, and almost began with, her spectacular altissimo.
RD: She had a voice of a similar type to Natalie Dessay. Perhaps less attractive. It was very light, and when she did the high staccatos, it really sounded like fireworks going off. Listen to the bell song in Lakmé — formidable! Aside from that, the voice wasn't very attractive, but her high staccatos were extraordinary. She was delightful onstage — in Lakmé, she was like a little doll. Charming. But Dessay has a much prettier voice.
ON: Did you sing mostly in France?
RD: Yes — in all the European francophone countries, for the radio in
England, and occasionally in Germany.
ON: You sang many of the great Italian roles in French. For instance, I was listening earlier to the incredibly sensual version of the Act I La Bohème duet with Alain Vanzo, where every word is cherished.
RD: We sang mostly in French and were happy to do so. As for the diction, it was quite normal at the time, because everyone sang in good French.
ON: I wonder why that's no longer the case.
RD: It comes from the way of singing. You have to lean on the consonants to sing well. It is so important to understand the words in the opera house. We sang many Italian and German operas in French. I sang Die Zauberflöte on many occasions, as well as three different versions of Le Nozze di Figaro — two French translations and the original Italian. It was the same thing with Così Fan Tutte, which is one of my real passions. My husband calculated that I had sung more Mozart than any other composer. I sang both Pamina and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Donna Elvira and Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Così Fan Tutte and Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. I was offered the Countess, but I didn't think I had enough vocal weight to do it justice, and I enjoyed the role of Susanna.
ON: The opening of the mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, sung in the French version, has a marvelously full, rooted sound, which belies the spectacular coloratura that follows.
RD: You must sing it like that. I think another problem today is the fact that conductors are often too fast — except for Michel Plasson in Werther the other day. [Much laughter.] I must tell you a story about the conductor Pierre Dervaux, who was already a bit fast. I was singing Rigoletto under the wonderful conductor André Cluytens, we rehearsed, and it was magnificent, and then came the performance in the evening. I thought, "It's strange he rehearsed it one way, and now he's performing it quite differently." We got to the fourth act, and I saw Denise Scharley, who was singing Maddalena, and I said to her, "What's wrong with Cluytens tonight?" And she said, "Take another look in the pit," and it was Dervaux, who without my glasses I hadn't been able to see!
ON: What was your favorite role?
RD: If my husband were still alive, he would have said Lucia, and of course Violetta in La Traviata, in which the acting is so rewarding. But I didn't really have favorite roles. I sang a huge number of performances of Lakmé — to the point of indigestion!
ON: And you also frequently sang all the heroines of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann on the same night.
RD: Yes. I think I can say that I am the French soprano who has sung the three roles in Hoffmann the most number of times, along with Ophélie in Hamlet.
ON: Did you find the change of weight of voice and character between the three very different female characters in Hoffmann a particular challenge?
RD: Not at all!
ON: Some people make out that it's a great feat.
RD: Then they shouldn't sing the roles!
ON: And who sang the best Hamlet to your Ophélie?
RD: I think most of the baritones of the day had a go. For acting, Arthur Endrèze was superb, but not really vocally. Otherwise, Michel Dens was pretty good!
ON: Did you perform many recitals of French song? I have been listening to your exquisite recording of Fauré's La Chanson d'Eve.
RD: Not a tremendous number. I would have liked to do more, but at the time in France there were not many chamber-music concerts, and there were other specialists, like Ninon Vallin. But I worked well with the pianist, Simone Gouat, on the Fauré. She won her first prize at the conservatoire when Fauré himself was still head of the institution.
ON: Do you go to the opera much now?
RD: Not any longer, no. But I see things on the television.
ON: And what do you think of the productions today?
RD: Horrible. I don't know whether you saw the Mireille from the Paris Opera?
ON: But it was quite a conventional staging.
RD: Yes, but the conducting and the singing…. I didn't much care for the new Werther,either, which was less horrible than the Mireille, but horrible nonetheless. The poor Werther comes onstage and sings about nature, and there was a stone wall and a door. Poor Charlotte was crucified right from the beginning — and as much a mezzo as I am the Pope. 
STEPHEN MUDGE is OPERA NEWS's Paris correspondent.
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