Frans de Guyse

Frans de Guyse studied at the Antwerp Conservatory. He made his debut in 1936 at the Vlaamse Opera in Ghent in Don Giovanni. De Guyse sometimes used his real name Frans Gijsen, when he sang in the Flemish part of Belgium; at other occasions again, his stage name was spelled De Guise. He specialized in the old heroic repertory and was the immediate predecessor of Tony Poncet in this field. De Guyse's repertory included:

Les huguenots
Guillaume Tell
L'Africaine
Il trovatore
Rigoletto
La Juive
Le château de la Grande Bretèche
Tsar's bride
La traviata
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Tosca
La bohème
Turandot
Der Rosenkavalier
Faust
Das Land des Lächelns
Friederike
Paganini
Quinten Matsys
Die Fledermaus (Eisenstein)
Die Zauberflöte
Madama Butterfly
Pagliacci
Lakmé
Giuditta

De Guyse never recorded commercially.
He made a few private recordings after his retirement from the stage; furthermore, a live recording of a 1966 Favorite from Verviers has survived (with Simone Couderc and Gilbert Dubuc).

Some career facts:
At the Monnaie in Brussels, De Guyse sang:
Tsar's bride (Rimskij-Korsakov)
Le chemineau (Leroux) – 1938/39 season – role: Toinet – 5 performances
Guillaume Tell (Rossini) – 1949/50 season – role: Arnold – 12 performances

In Ghent, he sang in 1936/37, 1945–47, 1949/50, 1955–57, 1959/60 and 1961/62.

In Antwerp, he sang from 1936 to 1938, 1940 to 1946, 1951 to 1958 and 1961 to 1963.

In Verviers, he sang continuously from 1941 to 1966: in Traviata (Alfredo), Rigoletto (Duca), Guillaume Tell (Arnold), Africaine (Vasco), Juive (Éléazar), Le château de la Grande Bretèche (Dupuis) and La favorite (Fernand).

In France, he sang at the following theaters: Toulouse, Marseille, Toulon, Bordeaux, Nîmes, Lyon and Aix-les-Bains. He also sang in Algiers.

I wish to thank Georges Voisin & Lysiana Medine for the recording.

I wish to thank Claude Ribou for the Toulon program.

I wish to thank Christian Torrent for the pictures.

Reference: Richard T. Soper: Belgian opera houses and singers, The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1999.
Three pictures have been copied from Claude-Pascal Perna's fantastic collection: Tell, Bohème and Juive.