Description

TONY PONCET (MARÍA, SPAIN, 23 DECEMBER, 1918 – LIBOURNE, AQUITAINE, 13 NOVEMBER, 1979)

 

 

 

 

Born Antonio Poncé Miron in María, Spain, he came to France with his financially strapped family in 1922 and settled in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. He left school at 13, did manual work and found labouring jobs but, more importantly, began singing as an amateur in 1933 in a travelling choir called Les chanteurs montagnards d’Alfred Roland.

Poncet served with the French army in World War Two, was captured by the Germans and imprisoned. Following his liberation by American forces he returned to France and was awarded a military veterans’ scholarship in 1947 to study voice at the Paris Conservatory. At the conservatory, he received lessons from Fernand Francell, Gabriel Dubois and Louise Vuillermoz.

He won first prize in the dramatic tenor category at a singing competition held in Cannes in 1954 and embarked on a concert tour that took him to the United States, Mexico and Canada. Upon his return, he was engaged to sing at several provincial opera theatres in France (Lyon, Avignon, Toulouse and so on), but it was in Belgium that he scored his first big successes, notably at Liège, Ghent and Brussels.

Poncet made his debuts at both the Opéra-Comique and the Palais Garnier in Paris in 1957. He specialised in the demanding lead tenor roles of such 19th-century French grand operas as La Juive, Les Huguenots, La favorite, L’Africaine, Faust and Hérodiade. In these particular works, his excitingly powerful and ringing high notes could be exhibited to great advantage. He was also admired in a number of Italian operatic works, including Il trovatore, Aida, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci.

His voice declined somewhat in power and his career therefore began to falter in the mid-1960s and he returned to the provincial circuit. In 1969, however, he re-emerged on the world scene, undertaking the role of Raoul in a concert version of Les Huguenots at Carnegie Hall, opposite soprano Beverly Sills; but by now his singing was in obvious decline, and the New York music critics proved hostile. His last performance occurred in Toulouse in 1974.

Poncet was one of the few post-war French tenors capable of singing heroic roles in a manner at all reminiscent of the great Gallic spinto tenors and dramatic tenors of previous generations—the likes of Gilbert-Louis Duprez, Jean-Alexandre Talazac, Agustarello Affre, Léon Escalaïs, Charles Dalmorès, Paul Franz, César Vezzani, Georges Thill and José Luccioni (not to mention the Francophone Pole Jean de Reszke and the Francophone Belgian Fernand Ansseau). Of small stature and blessed with limited acting skills, the steely power of Poncet’s voice—coupled with his impressive upper register (which ascended to the high D in his prime)—made up to a certain extent for his lack of stage credibility.

Poncet died of cancer in Libourne, Aquitaine, at the age of 60.

 

TRACKLIST

 

Tony Poncet – Chante En Français Les Airs Célèbres D’Opéra

Label: Philips – G 03.487 L

Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono

Country: France

Genre: Classical

A1 La Tosca – O De Beautés Egales

A2 La Tosca – Le Ciel Luisait D’Etoiles

A3 Le Trouvère – Supplice Infâme

A4 Le Trouvère – Exilé Sur La Terre

A5 Le Trouvère – O Toi, Mon Seul Espoir

A6 La Bohème – Que Cette Main Est Froide

A7 Turandot – Nul Ne Dormait

A8 Aida – O Céleste Aida

B1 Rigoletto – Comme La Plume Au Vent

B2 Rigoletto – Ballade

B3 La Fille Du Far-West – Qu’elle Me Croie En Liberté

B4 Cavalleria Rusticana – Comme La Blanche Fleur

B5 La Favorite – Ange Si Pur

B6 La Favorite – Un Ange, Une Femme Inconnue

B7 Guillaume Tell – Asile Héréditaire

Cat n° G 03.487-L

Matrix Side 1 : PH1 AA 3487 1L 380

Matrix Side 2 : PH1 AA 3487 2L DN D1 380

 

Tony Poncet – Premier Grand-Prix Du Bel-Canto Paris 1958

Label: Philips – P 77.122 L

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Mono

Country: Canada

Genre: Classical

Style: Opera

A1 O Sole Mio

A2 Ay, Ay, Ay

A3 Serenade

A4 Les Millions D’arlequin

A5 Les Oiseaux Dans Le Soir

A6 Mattinata

B1 Santa Lucia

B2 Serenade Française

B3 Catari ”Core ‘Ngrato”

B4 Celebre Serenata

B5 Si Vous L’aviez Compris

B6 La Danza

Distributed By – London Records Of Canada (1967) Ltd.

Orchestrated By – Jesus Etcheverry

Matrix / Runout (Label Side A): AA 77.122 1L

Matrix / Runout (Label Side B): AA 77.122 2L