Monsieur Maillard

Maillard (he always came without a first name, as customary in France at the time) is best documented for having sung a minor part in La Juive at the Paris Opéra in 1891; from that moment on, he was (again as customary) always billed as "M. Maillard de l'Opéra", although it seems that he never sang there again.

However, Maillard wasn't exclusively a comprimario. In 1885, he was a member of the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, and spent the summer season at the Casino of Bagnères-de-Bigorre as their first tenor. At some unknown time, he belonged to the theaters of Lille and of Douai. Various times throughout the year 1890, he appeared at the Opéra-Bouffe in Paris (that's how the theater that is otherwise known as the Paradis-Latin was called for a short time) in Audran's comic opera Les noces d'Olivette. In July of the same year, he sang Don José at the Casino in Boulogne-sur-Mer. In March 1893, he was Zéphoris in Si j'étais roi in Amiens. In February 1894, he sang Gounod's Faust in Saint-Quentin, with mixed results.

He appeared in concerts in the French provinces, for instance in Lagny in July 1899, singing "Ô Dieu, Dieu de nos pères", "Anges du paradis", "Ange si pur" and "Je pense à vous"; and, again in Lagny, in August of the same year, when he was very successful with "Celeste Aida" and "À moi les plaisirs" (with the basso Vernouillet who was announced as "de l'Opéra", too, without showing up in that theater's annals). In September 1897, he sang at the obsequies for a young cavalry sergeant killed in a riding accident, at the church of Fontainebleau.

In 1895, Maillard applied for the direction of the theater of Douai for the 1895/96 season; he was considered the most promising candidate, but I didn't find any information as to whether he actually got that post.

Maillard still appeared in June 1913 at the Pré-Catalan in Paris, in a concert honoring his old voice teacher Max Bouvet – some 18 years after the last mention of any solo or concert activity by Maillard. Had he become a chorister meanwhile?

Finally, I wonder whether the tenor Monsieur Maillard, who participated in a concert of sacred music in Dinard on 3 September 1922, was still "our" Maillard.

Reference 1 (defunct, but retrievable via the Wayback Machine); reference 2: L'Avenir des Hautes-Pyrénées, 7 June 1885; reference 3: Comoedia, 28 June 1913; reference 4: Le Grand Écho du Nord de la France, 14 June 1895; reference 4: Journal de Seine-et-Marne, 14 July & 4 August 1899; reference 5: Journal de la Ville de Saint-Quentin et de l’Arrondissement, 17 February 1894; reference 6: Le Progrès de la Somme, 3 March 1893; reference 7: L'Événement, 20 July 1890; reference 8: Figaro, 1 September 1890; reference 9: L'Europe Artiste, 26 January 1890; reference 10: L'Ouest-Éclair, 2 September 1922; reference 11: L'Abeille de Fontainebleau, 1 October 1897

I wish to thank Richard J. Venezia for the recording.

Discography

Gramophone, Paris, July 1900
1179G	Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti): Bientôt l'herbe des champs	32718
1180G	La favorite (Donizetti): Un ange, une femme inconnue		32864
1181G	La Juive (Halévy): Dieu, que ma voix tremblante			32721
1182G	Les huguenots (Meyerbeer): Plus blanche				32717
1183G	Mignon (Thomas): Adieu, Mignon					32719
1185G	Carmen (Bizet): La fleur					32720
1186G	Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns): Israël, romps ta chaine		32722

Additionally, Maillard made a whole lot of cylinder recordings for the label of the Catholic publishing 
and printing house "Maison de la Bonne Presse". (The recording process was in the hands of Pathé.) 
The problem, for most of those recordings (minimum 55 are concerned), is that it's impossible to tell 
which exactly were made by whom – the Maison de la Bonne Presse issued most of them 
semi-anonymously, which means: no name on the cylinder or its box, just a list of singers in their ads, 
where they say that the tenor recordings of opera and sacred music were made by Maillard and Caylus, 
both "de l'Opéra". So as long as you cannot hear each cylinder, it's impossible to determine 
which one was sung by Caylus and which by Maillard... and hearing even one of them is next to 
impossible since they all date from the year 1900, and it's very doubtful how many specimen have 
survived. For a few of them, however, Maillard's participation could be established:

Maison de la Bonne Presse, Paris, 1900
BP351	Le crucifix (Faure) (w. Merglet)				351, Zenith G2
BP579	Stances (Flégier)						579, Stentor 579, Zenith G1
BP580	Faust (Gounod): Alerte! Alerte! (w. Mathieu & Merglet)		870, Stentor 870, Zenith G3