French operatic tenor with a lyric voice and a graceful singing style.
Victor Capoul was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1859, where, as a pupil of R‚vial (singing) and Mocker (op‚ra comique), he won a first prize for the latter attainment in 1861.
He was engaged at the Op‚ra-Comique the same year and made his debut on 26 August as Daniel in Adolphe Adam’s Le Chalet. He created the roles of Renaud in Lef‚bure-W‚ly’s 1861 opera Les Recruteurs, Eustache in Les Absents by Ferdinand Poise on 26 October 1864, Horace in the 2-act version of Gounod’s opera La colombe on 7 June 1866, Le Marquis de Kerdrel in La grand’tante on 3 April 1867, Gaston de Maillepr‚ in Le premier jour de bonheur on 15 February 1868, and Valentin/Vert-Vert in Offenbach’s op‚ra comique Vert-Vert on 10 March 1869.
He was invited to London for a season in 1871 by Mapleson, appearing in Faust at Drury Lane and returned again until 1875; later from 1877 he was seen in Fra Diavolo at Covent Garden (which he had first sung at the Op‚ra-Comique in 1870), followed by Almaviva, Ernesto and Elvino. After several tours around Europe, to Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Vienna, he returned to Paris, and appeared in the premieres of Les amants de V‚rone at the Th‚ƒtre Ventadour, Paul et Virginie, at the Gait‚; Sa‹s at the Th‚ƒtre de la Renaissance and Jocelyn at the Chƒteau d’Eau.
In the USA, he made his debut at the Academy of Music in 1871. Later, he appeared in the first season, that of 1883?84, at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Faust (title role), Mignon (Wilhelm Meister), La traviata (Alfredo) and Rom‚o et Juliette (Tybalt).
He collaborated on the libretto of Jocelyn, by Godard (premiŠre 25 February 1888 at La Monnaie, Brussels), and sang in the Paris premiere at the Th‚ƒtre du Ch…teau-d’Eau on 13 October 1888. His one known recording is of an aria from this opera. It was made in Paris in 1905 for the Fonotipia Company and shows a voice past its prime. By this time Capoul was almost stone deaf.
In 1899, Pedro Gailhard recruited him to become artistic director of the Op‚ra de Paris. Capoul’s later life was clouded by financial and other difficulties, and he died in reduced circumstances in Pujaudran on 18 February 1924, aged 84.
Link to Wikipedia biography