Tour by French Tenor

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 374, 23 August 1946, Page 13

Tour by French Tenor

EORGES THILL (above), the famous French operatic tenor, whose voice is well known to radio listeners through his recordings, is to make a quick tour of Australia and New Zealand in September and October, and he will give concerts in the main centres here before he leaves for Mexico, South America, the United States, and then London. Thill has sung tenor roles in French and Italian opera all over the world, and took part in the 2,000th pereformance of Gounod’s Faust in Paris in 1934. He was among the famous French artists who refused to collaborate or even sing in public during the German occupation. He .retired to his country home for the whole time and only sang again after the German collapse. He toured the occupation zones and sang to the occupying armies at the request of the Allied High Command, and on June 12, 1946, he gave his first big post-war concert in Paris. Then he left for Canada, and is there at present. Georges Thill studied singing in France and Naples, and made his debut in opera in Paris. He served in the first World War, first with the infantry (being decorated with the Croix de Guerre for conspicuous gallantry and made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur), and later in. the French Air Force. After the war he rejoined the Opera, Paris, and was shortly made leading tenor. In the next 20 years he was invited to opera houses in many countries-Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Latin America and the United States and made many gramophone re- _ cordings, by which he has become well known to New Zealanders.