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Interview issued in the Toulousian Newspaper "LE CRI PUBLIC",
on 9 February 1947.
ARTISTIC GALLERY : The tenor Fernand FANIARD, de l'Opéra,
soloist of "Concerts Colonne" and "Pasdeloup"
It is not so easy as sopposed to approach Mr. Faniard, especially
when we act imprudently to let him understand it is for to write an
article about him .
- " It is on the stage that I am belonging to the public, he
agrees to answer, it is the place when I am in direct touch with it
and it is where public is judging me. Believe me, the audience knows
very well if it might me applaud or not. The rest, at any kind of
sauce you will cook it, is journalism, good and well-intentioned
journalism, but even though : journalism"
- "Maybe is it not really true. The public is fond to get a more
thorough knowledge of the artist he likes, as he is able to give it
strong artistic sensations. It wants to make a better acquaintance
with him, to know some more about details which belong to the way of
life. It is for some of those things I went looking for, to come up to
its expectations as it has for you a marked predilection. So I think
about "Walküre", "Hérodiade", "Aïda",
"Patrie" and, above all, "Samson et Dalila" in
which you and your partners were magnificent.
- " We were magnificent -using your little bit meridional
smelling expression- because none of us were playing to be a star. One
of the todays deficiency, you see, lies in the fact that artists are
thinking they are doing the show. Well then, the show is a whole and
the slightest wrong note ruins the atmosphere, the mood, in a word
this kind of rapture in which the listener is immersed. The success of
"Samson", you were talking about, is done to all the people
who had taken a part of this rendering : the choirs, whose score is a
very difficult, Suzanne Lefort, your well-known orchestra, the ballet,
Jules Forest, Humbert Tomatis and myself. We ought to not forget our
electrician, technician and scene shifter friends, whose
participation, if as small it should be, is proved as essential. But
there is another reason : if everyone of us has reached their actual
point, it is the result of a hard work in order to obtain the
necessary techic without which the voice is a very little thing"
- " It concerns now indeed the delicate point of an artist's
carreer"
-" Yes, and don't be afraid to write it. The desire to earn
money, quick, very quick, induces the artist apprentices to sing
before to have really practised their voices. At the beginning of my
career, 5 years studies were necessary for making a beginner, still
admitting he had all required vocal qualities and that the musical
acquaintance's questions were obtained. Paradoxical is it to required
of an instrumentalist his absolute instrument's mastery, and for
singers just only an approximate -and often worthless, as we could
say- vocal technic. This must be not a reason of discouragement for my
young friends, to whom I am ready to bring assistance. Do they see, on
the contrary, an exhortation to educate themselves in their way of
art, not only for making a conquest of looking for beautiful things
people, but also for their own satisfaction. The lyric theatre, so
dangerous threatened by the movies, will only survive if defendend
with faith, with all the needful faith which must move us. And I would
have tell everything to you, Monsieur l'Indiscret, when I had told
that if the public will always keep a nice welcome to me, for my part,
I am leaving no stone unturned in order to perform with my best all
the scores which are entrusted to me". |
