Xavier Depraz
1926 - 1994Born in Albert (Somme), Depraz was a bass at the Paris Opéra until 1971. He took part in the premieres of operas by Marcel Landowski and Sergei Prokofiev. He also appeared as an actor, first on television, where he played the role of Ursus in The Man who laughs by Jean Kerchbron, then on the big screen.
Depraz entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1947 where he attended the classes of Fernand Francell for singing, Louis Musy for the stage and René Simon for theatre. He participated in the premieres of several operas: Marcel Landowski's Le Rire de Nils Halerius (1951) and Le Fou, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites and, in concert version, Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel (1954). In the 1953 Paris premiere of The Rake's Progress at the Opéra-Comique Depraz was "a splendid Nick Shadow". He also sang in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Verdi's Rigoletto, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Massenet's Don Quichotte and Thaïs among others. For his appearance as Méphistophélès in Monte Carlo in 1959 one reviewer commented "Xavier Depraz, immensely tall, and surprisingly thin and angular for an operatic bass, produced a suitably resonant and cavernous voice, and histrionically was satisfyingly demonic".
He also appeared at the French provincial opera houses, Glyndebourne and Venice, and was appointed a professor of opera at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1973.
In 1971, he began a career as an actor in film and television.
His recordings include Une éducation manquée (Pausanias), Les Pêcheurs de perles (Nourabad), Romeo et Juliette (Frère Laurence), Carmen (Zuniga for Beecham and Haitink), Renard, Dialogues des Carmélites (Le Marquis de la Force) and the Duruflé Requiem.
Depraz died in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs (Isère) on 18 October 1994.
Source: Article "Xavier Depraz" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Le droit d'aimer
Eric Le Hung
Florinda Bolkan, Omar Sharif
The tragedy of Helene and her husband Pierre, whose life is shattered when Pierre is kept as a political prisoner, while Helene is denied the right to visit him. A growing fear of losing her husband to tuberculosis takes over Helene, who does all she can to meet him, even for one last time.
The Right to Love
Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Peter Hall
Malcolm Walker, Marie McLaughlin
Don José is a guard who begins an affair with the tempestuous Carmen. He is imprisoned and loses his job, then flees with her to the mountains. When the relationship starts to break down José refuses to acknowledge it and will not leave, even when he gets news that his mother is dying. Carmen, meanwhile, has taken up with the bullfighter Escamillo. Bizet's most famous opera is brought to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera by Sir Peter Hall, with Maria Ewing and Barry McCauley heading an international cast.
Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Lucky Luke: The Ballad of the Daltons
Henri Gruel, Pierre Watrin
Daniel Ceccaldi, Georges Atlas
The story opens in a Western saloon, where a young musician with a banjo begins to tell a tale of Lucky Luke and his sworn enemies the Dalton brothers: Joe, William, Jack and Averell. Luke has, once again, as he has done many times before, thrown the four outlaws into jail. The prison is also the abode of a guard dog named Rin Tin Can (Rantanplan in the original French language version).
Lucky Luke: The Ballad of the Daltons
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Georges Lautner
Alain Delon, Stéphane Audran
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Death of a Corrupt Man
Would-Be Gentleman
Pierre Badel
Michel Serrault, Rosy Varte
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme satirizes attempts at social climbing and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and the vain, snobbish aristocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a "gentleman" was by definition nobly born, and thus there could be no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman.
Would-Be Gentleman
Un papillon sur l'épaule
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Lino Ventura, Claudine Auger
On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes up in a strange clinic without remembering who brought him there. The doctor insists he hallucinated, but it's not long before he obtains evidence that it wasn't a dream.
Butterfly on the Shoulder
Ce cher Victor
Robin Davis
Bernard Blier, Jacques Dufilho
A pair of elderly men, friends for 40 years, find their relationship stressed when they set up housekeeping together in order to save money. Exploring similar ground to that covered in Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple, which spawned a movie and a television series, Ce Cher Victor explores the tragic and dramatic aspects of the story. The two friends, meek, sensitive Anselme (Bernard Blier) and blustering Victor (Jacques Dufilho) are swiftly driven apart by circumstances.
Cher Victor
Les Sœurs Brontë
André Téchiné
Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier
In a small presbytery in Yorkshire, England, living under the watchful eyes of their aunt and father, a strict Anglican pastor, the Bronte sisters write their first works and quickly become literary sensations.
The Bronte Sisters
Le gang
Jacques Deray
Alain Delon, Xavier Depraz
In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as "the front-wheel drive gang". The police attempt to stop their crime spree with little success, but how long will their luck last?
The Gang
