Hugues Cuénod

Hugues-Adhémar Cuénod (French pronunciation: [yɡ kɥeˈno]; 26 June 1902 – 6 December 2010)[1][2][3][4] was a Swiss classical tenor, sometimes placed in the haute-contre category,[5] and music educator known for his performances in international opera, operetta, both traditional and musical theatre, and on the concert stage, where he was particularly known for his clear, light, romantic and expressive poised interpretation of mélodie (French art song).

[6] A master of diction and technique, his repertoire encompassed everything from the medieval chansons of Guillaume de Machaut, Elizabethan lute songs, the sacred renaissance compositions of Claudio Monteverdi to the operas of Jacques Offenbach and the avant garde works of Igor Stravinsky.

His grandfather, William Cuenod, was the mayor of Corseaux, and he had partial English ancestry through his grandmother, being related to both the Churchill and Spencer families.

[7][8] In 1913, aged 11, Cuénod attended the 78th birthday party of Camille Saint-Saëns, who played piano duets with Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

In 1928, he made his stage debut in Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf in Paris, and in 1929 he sang for the first time in the United States in Noël Coward's Bitter Sweet.

In pre-war Vienna and Paris, he frequented aristocratic salons and worked with Nadia Boulanger, with whom he made a pioneering set of recordings of madrigals by Monteverdi in 1937; after the war, the new early-music boom relied heavily on his light, unmannered, natural sound.

In June 2007, when Cuénod was 105, he and Augustin entered into a civil union after changes in Swiss law gave same-sex couples many of the legal benefits of marriage.