Ernest Blanc

Ernest Marius Victor Blanc, born November 1, 1923, in Sanary-sur-Mer, France, was a French operatic baritone. After working as an employee at the Arsenal de Toulon, he was discovered in 1946 at a singing contest, which led to his studies at the Conservatoire de Toulon where he earned a prize of excellence three years later. He debuted in Marseille in 1950, and later moved to Parisian stages, performing the title role in Rigoletto at the Opéra Garnier in 1954. Over subsequent decades, his international career took him to major stages, including Covent Garden, Chicago, the Glyndebourne Festival, Edinburgh, San Francisco, and the Paris Opera. In 1958, he sang Telramund in Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival, and in 1959 portrayed Escamillo in Carmen at La Scala. His notable recordings include Gounod's Faust (1958), Bizet's Carmen (1959) and Les pêcheurs de perles (1960), Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila (1962), and Wagner's Le Vaisseau Fantôme (1964). He retired from performance in 1987 and died on December 22, 2010, in Bordeaux, France.