Guest
“Frustratingly little is known about the life and career of Edmond Glück. He was born in Nîmes in the south of France in 1864 and initially studied to be an engineer. His debut, as Vasco in L’Africaine on November 10, 1887 at La Monnaie in Brussels, was disastrous. A critic writing for Le Ménestrel complained of Glück’s tiny voice and opined that it would be a wise move for the debutant singer to return to engineering. The young tenor moved forward with his career and accepted a contract with the Théâtre National Lyrique in Paris the following year. This, too, ended badly for Glück; he was fired before the season was over. The tenor sued the company for breach of contract, although it is unknown how the suit was settled. Needless to say, Glück never sang with Théâtre National Lyrique again. Determined to overcome a bad start (actually, TWO bad starts), Glück spent some time in the French provinces, gaining experience and building his repertoire. When he returned to Paris, in 1891, he was engaged by the Opéra-Comique. He debuted with the company on May 21st of that year, singing Don José in Carmen. He remained with the Opéra-Comique for at least a decade and made appearances with other companies as well, most notably in Nantes and Marseille. Although Glück seemed to have found an artistic home in Paris, the reviews continued to be less than complimentary. Critics referred to him as a “light tenor” and complained that he could barely be heard beyond the footlights. Despite this, Glück developed an impressive repertoire including Wilhelm Meister in Mignon, Vincent in Mireille, Gérald in Lakmé, Raoul in Les Huguenots, des Grieux in Manon, Fernand in La Favorite and the title role in Faust. One of the final press pieces published on him comes from December of 1905, when it was reported that his contract in Nantes had been terminated. One assumes that his singing days came to an end shortly thereafter. That is where the story of Edmond Glück rather aggravatingly comes to an abrupt halt. Even his date of death is clouded in mystery. Making research even more difficult is the fact that an older tenor by the name of Glück (to whom our Glück was reportedly related) was active in Paris during the same period. Although the paper trail on Edmond Glück is quite paltry, he left behind an interesting legacy of more than 60 recordings, made for Phrynis, Edison, Odeon & Dutreih between 1904 and 1909. These cylinders and discs do not suggest a light voice at all, but a full lyric tenor with a rather impressive sense of musical artistry. It is not always a well-produced voice, however, and is definitely lacking on the top (high A or B flat seem to be the limit, making downward transpositions necessary). From what we can hear in Glück’s recordings, it is a mostly pleasant sounding lyric instrument, probably more suitable for smaller theaters or the concert platform. However, in the forgiving confines of the recording studio, the tenor is free to tackle heroic arias from La Juive, Guillaume Tell, Le Cid, Aïda and even Otello. In this rare recording, Glück sings a truncated version of ““Ah, fuyez, douce image““ from Massenet's Manon. This was recorded in Paris for the Edison company around 1906.“
