Pol Plancon 1851 - 1914 Compilation of the legendary Bel Canto Bass!

0:00 Voici de roses from Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust 2:55 Devant la maison from Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust 4:46 Air du Tambour-Major from Ambroise Thomas' Le Caid 8:53 Au bruit des lourds from Gounod's Philemon et Baucis 11:58 De son coeur j'ai calme from Ambroise Thomas' Mignon sung in italian 15:58 Vallons de l'Helvétie from Adolphe Adam's Le Chalet 19:04 O jours heurueux from Meyerbeer's L'etoile du nord 22:45 En chasse, piqueurs adroits from Meyerbeer's Dinorah 25:48 Lasst mich ein fragen from Flowtow's Martha sung in italian 28:31 Vi ravviso o luoghi ameni from Bellini's La Sonnambula 31:52 Elle ne m'aime pas from Verdi's Don Carlos 35:43 Pro Peccatis From Rossini's Stabat Mater 38:28 Schon eilet froh from Haydn's Die jahreszeiten sung in French 41:51 Le Cac by Louis Niedermeyer 45:30 Au plays bleu by Chaminade 47:58 Les rameux by Jean Baptiste Faure 51:42 Credo by Jean Baptiste Faure THE EBD :) Pol Henri Plançon (French: [pɔl ɑ̃ʁi plɑ̃sɔ̃]; 12 June 1851 – 11 August 1914) was a French operatic bass (basse chantante). He was one of the most acclaimed singers active during the 1880s, 1890s and early 20th century—a period often referred to as the "Golden Age of Opera". In addition to being among the earliest international opera stars to have made recordings, he was a versatile singer who performed roles ranging from Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute to the core bass roles by Meyerbeer, Gounod, Verdi and Wagner, among others. He was renowned for his legato singing as well as for his diction, tone, intonation, and mastery of ornaments and fioriture. Biography Pol Plançon was born in Fumay, in the Ardennes département of France, near the Belgian border. "Pol" is a pet form of Paul. Training Blessed with a fine natural voice, he commenced learning to sing with the pivotal French tenor Gilbert Duprez (the originator of the "chest voice high C"), who had turned to teaching after his retirement from the stage. Duprez had enjoyed a distinguished career in Italy, where he created Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835. Plançon supplemented his studies with Duprez with lessons from Giovanni Sbriglia, who taught many outstanding opera singers at his Parisian studio, most notably the brothers Jean and Édouard de Reszke, with whom Plançon would sing quite often in future years. In a 1905 interview with the New York Times newspaper, he said that he had modelled his technique on the vocal method of a celebrated predecessor, the baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, who had been an idol of Parisian audiences during the 1860s and '70s. He performed on the European scene from 1891 to 1904, most importantly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London, where he participated yet again in numerous premieres. One of these occurred on 11 June 1892, when he appeared in the first staging of The Light of Asia, by Isidore de Lara. Another premiere was of one of Cécile Chaminade's works.[1] Other operatic first performances that he graced with his presence included: on 20 June 1894, La Navarraise, by Massenet; on 30 June 1901, the operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, by Sir Charles Stanford; in 1901, Le roi d'Ys, by Édouard Lalo; and in 1904, Hérodiade, by Massenet. Upon his return to Paris at the age of 57, he retired from the hustle and bustle of the stage while still in excellent all-round voice, although the top notes of his range had begun to weaken. He occupied himself by giving lessons to select pupils. He was 63 years old when he died in the French capital in the summer of 1914, just as World War I was erupting in Europe. He possessed a genuine bass voice, ranging from the top F down to a resonant and easy bottom D, although the light and nimble tone that he employed was suggestive of a higher-pitched instrument. From a musicological standpoint, his singing is of considerable historical interest because the refined vocal method that he employed was shaped prior to the advent of passionate, slice-of-life verismo opera in the 1890s. (To perform the verismo repertoire effectively, 20th-century singers were required to adopt a less elegant and less florid style of operatic vocalism than had hitherto been the norm.) Indeed, Plançon is considered to be one of the last important figures in a long line of exceptional French basses and baritones stretching back to the birth of operatic music's romantic era in the early decades of the 19th century. His predecessors and contemporaries in this Gallic bel canto tradition included such celebrated artists as Henri-Bernard Dabadie, Nicolas Levasseur, Luigi Lablache, Prosper Dérivis, Paul Barroilhet, Jean-Baptiste Faure, Victor Maurel, Jean Lassalle and Maurice Renaud.