Jean de Reszke

Born Jan Reszke into an upper-class family, he became a professional singer like his brother Edward (Édouard, basso) and his sister Józefina (Joséphine, soprano) – all three gaining enormous fame, Jean being not only the most famous of the three, but the most famous tenor of his, and perhaps of all time.

He studied voice in Warsaw with Ciaffei and in Milano with Antonio Cotogni, making his debut at the Fenice in Venice in 1874 – as Alphonse in La favorite, hence as a baritone. As such, he sang in other Italian cities, in Paris and in London, before restudying with as a tenor with Giovanni Sbriglia in Paris; it had been Édouard who had recognized that Jean was actually a tenor. His 1879 tenor debut (as Robert le diable in Madrid) was no success, though, and for the next five years, he would only sing in concert.

Jules Massenet and Victor Maurel convinced him to come back to the stage; his success as Jean in Hérodiade (Paris, Théâtre Italien, 1884) was overwhelming, and the following year, on 30 November 1885, he created the title role in the world premiere of Le Cid at the Opéra; all of a sudden, he was the most famous tenor in the world. He stayed at the Opéra until 1889; he toured many theaters in France and throughout Europe, with a focus on Covent Garden in London, where he appeared regularly from 1888 to 1900. From 1890, he was a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for most seasons until 1901, more and more specializing on Wagner, which he sang in German in New York: Tristan, Stolzin, Lohengrin, Siegmund, Siegfried. After bidding farewell to London and New York, he quickly retired; his role debut as Canio at the Paris Opéra (1902) was his last performance.

Next, he became a highly successful voice teacher, first in Paris, then in Nice. Among his students were Richard Bonelli, Arthur Endrèze, Mme. Charles Cahier, Carmen Melis, Leo Slezak, Johannes Sembach, Maggie Teyte, Bidù Sayão...

What is hardly acceptable for record collectors is that Jean de Rezke made two studio recordings – and that they are definitely lost. It was on 22 April 1905, during the legendarily catastrophic first Fonotipia recording sessions in Paris: the sound engineer being unable to use the new recording device properly, most of the matrices could not be used and had to be destroyed, the two made by de Reszke were of course among them (xxxPh 568: Roméo et Juliette: Salut, tombeau; xxxPh 569: Le Cid: Ô souverain). Many of the singers came to the studio once more and repeated their recordings. De Reszke didn't. And no test pressings. That is already clear since the 1930s, when Horst Wahl was a recording engineer for Odeon (the mother company of Fonotipia). Wahl was one of Germany's most important vocal collectors (at the end of his long life, his collection comprised some 89,000 discs!), and he, too, was of course unable to accept that the two sole recordings by the most famous of all tenors should be lost forever. He checked in the company's archives, and he checked thoroughly. The result was as unambiguous as it was devastating: de Reszke's matrices had been immediately destroyed.

Obviously, also a Bettini cylinder of de Reszke's voice had once been made (as confirmed by Bettini himself); but that one, too, is lost: blown up in WWI by German bombs, together with an entire Bettini warehouse in France.

Everything else about these or alleged other de Reszke studio recordings is pure mystification, although at such mystification, there have been quite a few attempts. A bizarre example that seems like from a Dan Brown novel is a cylinder allegedly found in the vaults of Wagner's Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth, on which Jean de Reszke allegedly sings Salut, demeure. Well, that cylinder actually exists (I don't know whether it has ever been in Bayreuth, but doubt it), and it's certainly Salut, demeure, but definitely not de Reszke, although that has even been claimed on the French radio – de Reszke would never have sung a French aria in Italian, and what we can gather from de Reszke's live recordings, his vocality must have been much different from this Salut. (Listen to a snippet from that French radio program, complete with the High C from Salut, in RA format.) It would be interesting to know who the – obviously unnamed – singer is, the High C is actually not bad!

So we are left, as far as de Reszke's singing with a few snippets from Met live recordings on Mapleson cylinders; unfortunately, their technical quality is particularly bad (the two "best" examples are posted below), and it's all but impossible to get any impression of de Reszke's timbre. At least about his phrasing, those recordings reveal a bit, upon repeated listening.

Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens, reference 2