Jules Charat

Born in a village close to Grenoble, Charat studied voice at the conservatory of Lyon from 1910 to 1913. Already while still studying, he appeared in concerts in Vienne (south of Lyon) or in Beaune. After graduating from the conservatory with a first prize in opera. He got immediately a contract in Geneva, where he made his debut in October 1913 as Arnold (no less!), and scored a success.

It's strange that he is entirely missing from Wolff's book on the Paris Opéra, but it's certain that in 1918, he sang at least Arnold there, and probably also Lohengrin; whether additional roles I don't know, but in any case, his Opéra career must have been brief.

Otherwise, he appeared all over France, in just a handful of mostly fort ténor roles. I find him...
- in Nîmes in January/February 1916, as Vasco da Gama and Faust
- as Arnold at the Marseille Opéra from February to April 1916
- as Raoul in Toulouse (Théâtre du Capitole) in October 1916
- again as Raoul in an open-air production in Marseille in August 1917
- in February 1919 first as Arnold in Avignon, then as both Arnold and Fernand in Nantes
- as Arnold at the Eldorado and as Raoul and Fernand at the Grand-Casino, all in Marseille in June 1919
- as Arnold in Aix-en-Provence in July 1919
- as Fernand in Béziers in November 1919 - as Fernand and Éléazar in Aix-en-Provence in May 1920
- in Algiers: as Faust, Éléazar and Raoul in January 1920, as Arnold, Sigurd and Vasco in February, and as Samson in March
- as a member of the theater of Montpellier from 1920 to probably 1923, singing Sigurd in October 1920, Vasco da Gama in April 1921, Faust and Duca di Mantova in April 1922, Samson in February 1923, Fernand in March 1923 and Radames in December 1923
- as Raoul in Nice in November 1920
- again as Raoul in Avignon in November 1921
- and also as Raoul in Pau, February 1922
- as Fernand in Aix-en-Provence in April 1922
- as Vasco in Grenoble, April 1923
- as Sigurd in Valence, May 1924
- as Jean in Grenoble in June 1924 (open air)
- as Samson in Aix-en-Provence in October 1924
- as Éléazar in Bordeaux, April 1925
- another Éléazar in Limoges, April 1926
- Éléazar and Radames in Grenoble, August 1926
- and in November 1926, he was once more in Montpellier as Éléazar.

In March 1927, he sang Éléazar in Rouen, and it earned him a review that's worth translating:

La Juive was given Friday evening and Sunday morning, with Monsieur Charat, a 148-kilogram tenor. That's quite a weight. Mr. Charat is so big that he hesitates to sit down on the cardinal's chair in the fourth act, because he doesn't fit into it. So he balances on one buttock. Similarly, to fit through the door, he has to enter at an angle. This in no way detracts from his value, which is a fact. Without being an extraordinary fort ténor, he's a fort ténor of quality. His voice, a little pasty, is delivered with ease. The timbre is pleasant. Mr. Charat knows how to make the most of it, skilfully taking breaths whose regularity will, if he isn't careful, be threatened by his stoutness.
Rouen Gazette, 26 March 1927

That may be the explanation why due to ill health, he had to quit the stage the same year, at not even 40 years old. He opened a café ("Café de Paris et de l'Opéra") in Grenoble, where he died shortly before his 44th birthday. When he died, "Le Populaire du Centre" (21 January 1932) wrote that he had weighed 287 kilograms, no less!

That he refused to have his voice recorded has been ascribed to his being "a difficult character".

Reference and picture source: Le Dauphiné libéré, 18 August 2019
Contemporary newspaper references:
- L'Afrique du Nord Illustrée, 20 March 1920
- Comoedia, 1 December 1920, 1 April 1925
- L'Écho d'Alger, 15 and 17 January 1920, 7 and 21 February 1920
- L'Éclair, 11 and 14 October 1920, 13 April 1921, 10 November 1921, 4 and 13 April 1922, 19 November 1926
- L'Indépendant des Basses-Pyrénées, 18 February 1922
- Journal de Beaune, 5 March 1912
- Journal de Genève, 11 October 1913
- Journal de Tournon, 18 May 1924
- Journal de Vienne, 11 December 1912, 23 April 1913
- Le Mémorial d'Aix, 9 April 1916
- Le Midi Socialiste, 3 October 1916
- Les Nouvelles, 20 January 1920, 28 February 1920
- Le Petit Bleu de Paris, 8 February 1916
- Le Petit Dauphinois, 19 April 1923, 26 June 1924, 19 August 1926
- Le Petit Méridional, 2 March 1923, 23 December 1923
- Le Petit Provençal, 21 February 1916, 28 May 1919
- Le Phare de la Loire, 25 February 1919
- Le Populaire du Centre, 30 April 1926
- Le Progrès de la Côte-d'Or, 12 March 1912
- Le Publicateur de Béziers, 28 November 1919, 5 October 1924
- La République Aixoise, 5 July 1919, 15 May 1920, 16 April 1922
- La Semaine Mondaine, 26 February 1919
- Le Sémaphore de Marseille, 18 August 1917
- Spectator, 12 and 19 June 1919
- La Vie Montpelliéraine, 24 February 1923