Germaine Lubin

Germaine Léontine Angélique Lubin (1 February 1890 – 27 October 1979) was a French dramatic soprano, best known for her association with the music of Richard Wagner.

In 1912 she made her debut at the Opéra-Comique, singing Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann,[1] to an audience which included Claude Debussy and Paul Dukas, and she enjoyed a great success.

At the Opéra-Comique, Albert Carré gave her the chance to appear in several contemporary operas, including Gabriel Fauré's Pénélope (title role).

[2] She also sang Charlotte in Jules Massenet's Werther and the title role in Gustave Charpentier's Louise, and appeared in the world premiere of Le Pays by Guy Ropartz.

[3]) Lubin made her first appearance at the Paris Opéra in 1915, in Vincent d'Indy's Le Chant de la cloche, and continued to sing there for nearly 30 years.

After the German occupation of Paris in 1940, Jacques Rouché sought to re-open the Opéra and invited Lubin to return to sing Alceste.

This was followed by performances of Fidelio and Der Rosenkavalier, and in 1941 she again sang Isolde, this time with the visiting company of the Staatsoper from Berlin under the direction of Herbert von Karajan.

(She later said that she had agreed to this performance as part of a deal to secure the release of Maurice Franck, the Jewish "chef de chant", or music staff/vocal coach, at the Opéra.

Nevertheless, she was sentenced to "dégradation nationale" for life (subsequently reduced to five years), confiscation of property, and "interdiction de séjour" (a form of exile).

For her part, Lubin denied all ties to Nazi Germany, and grew deeply bitter over her treatment at the hands of the French government.

By her own admission she was a forceful and demanding personality, often haughty and distant with other people, and she responded to the heroic dimension of the characters that she portrayed on the operatic stage.

[7] Although Germaine Lubin became the foremost French dramatic soprano during the 1920s and '30s, and indeed one of the finest opera singers to be heard anywhere during the inter-war period, her performances are not particularly well represented on disc.