Denise Scharley trained for four years at the conservatory in Paris, and at
the end of her course won all three of the conservatory's prizes. She made her
debut in1942 at the Opéra Comique in Paris as Geneviève in
Pelléas et Mélisande. The next year, she had major
successes in the same house as Carmen and Mignon. Subsequently at the Opéra
Comique her roles included Taven in Mireille, Charlotte in
Werther and Dulcinée in Massenet's Don Quichotte. She
left the Opéra-Comique in 1947, and was engaged for a year at the Théâtre
de la Monnaie in Brussells. She also undertook many guest appearances, including
Carmen in Rome in 1947 with Mario del Monaco, and as Geneviève. In 1952
she debuted at the Grand Opéra in Paris as Dalila. In the following
years, she won admiration as Amneris, Fatime in Weber's
Oberon, Erda in the Ring cycle under Hans Knappertsbusch, Ulrica in Un
ballo in maschera and in 1957 in the original French production of Poulenc's
Dialogues des Carmélites. Her guest appearances included Geneva
and Lyon, the Opera at Monte Carlo (in 1970 as the mother in Louise
and1978 in
Les dialogues des Carmélites), at the Teatro Fenice in Venice (in
1973 in Rossellini's L'Annonce fait à Marie) at at the Teatro San
Carlo in Naples in 1972. She also made guest appearances at houses in
Switzerland, Spain, England, Holland and Germany.
She performed at the
Grand Opéra until 1973, but made later guest appearances, including one
in 1979 in Avignon. She also participated, in1982, in the original production of
Daniel Lesur's Ondine
at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. On
stage she was effective not least because of her theatrical presence. Notable
roles in her repertoire are Maddalena in
Rigoletto, the old countess in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame, Erda in
Siegfried and Mme Flora in The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti.
She
was married to the tenor Jacques Hivert ( b.4 December 1919; his real name was
Jean-Jacques Lecaillon), who trained with her in Paris and made his début
there in 1944 at the Opéra Comique as Jean in Les Noces de Jeanette
by Massé. He sang character and buffo roles in the same house for
many years, and participated on 3 June 1947 in the original production of
Francis Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias.
Recordings: Vega
(Excerpts from Massenet's Hérodiade, Werther
and Carmen), HMV (Dialogues des Carmélites), Columbia
(Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges).
We are pleased to present her here in Sigurd