Régine Crespin

about

Régine Crespin (23 February 1927 – 5 July 2007) was a French operatic dramatic soprano, later a mezzo-soprano, who excelled in both the French and German repertoire. Crespin was born in Marseille. Her childhood was affected both by growing up during World War II and her mother's alcoholism.[1] She began taking singing lessons at the age of sixteen. After failing to pass her Baccalauréat but doing well in a singing competition, she went to Paris and studied at the Conservatoire.[2] She made her début in 1950 in Mulhouse as Elsa in Lohengrin, and the same year appeared in that role in Paris.[1] After her debut, she sang with the Paris Opera but in regional centres. Her big break was being chosen as Kundry in Parsifal at the 1958 Bayreuth Festival, despite the fact that she had not sung Wagner in German. To learn the role in German, she was coached by Lou Bruder, a professor of German literature who later became her husband.[1] Notable subsequent parts added to her repertoire were Cassandre and Didon in Berlioz' Les Troyens; Carmen; Fauré's Pénélope; Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride; Charlotte in Massenet's Werther; Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein; Madame Lidoine and Madame de Croissy in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites; Tosca; the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades; Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal, and Sieglinde and Brünnhilde in his Die Walküre. Above all, perhaps, she was loved for her Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. Régine Crespin a

top songs

albums

Berlioz: Les Nuits D'été / Ravel: Shéhérazade, &c.

Ravel: Histoires naturelles & Satie: Songs - Melodies

▥

100 Best Opera Classics

Prima Donna in Paris

Wagner: Die Walküre

▥

A Tribute

▥

Verdi: Othello

Régine Crespin : Classic Recital

Berlioz: Nuits d'ete etc

▥

Song Recital - Schumann, Wolf, Debussy, Poulenc

▥

100 Best Opera Classics [Disc 4]

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen

similar artists