Jules Lefort

Jules Lefort (27 January 1822 – 7 September 1898), was a French lyrical singer of the Victorian era who in a career that spanned three decades regularly sang in the salons of wealthy and aristocratic patrons and in fashionable concert rooms both in Paris and London and across Europe.

"[1] There is some uncertainty about his vocal range at this stage in his career; his first press notice, in a short article about the Paris Opéra in January 1842 in the Parisian newspaper Les Coulisses, described the 19 year-old Lefort as a new baritone "with a beautiful voice" who, with proper training, would be able to sing tenor.

[1] He made his début at the Paris Opéra in 1848 singing the baritone role of Lord Enrico Ashton in Lucie de Lammermoor, and sang don Fadrique in Jeanne la Folle there in the same year.

After a brief return to Paris Lefort was back in London where, during October 1850, he appeared in a month long series of concerts under Michael William Balfe, the musical director and principal conductor at Her Majesty's Theatre.

[3] On 27 June 1856 Lefort and his partner Pierre Levassor gave the first performance in London of Offenbach's Les deux aveugles in a concert version at the Hanover Square Rooms.

In November 1858 Lefort introduced what was to become one of his most famous songs in the scena ‘Le Paradis perdu’, to music by Théodore Ritter and lyrics by Baron Darou de Coubaltes.

[1] In a concert in 1860 he sang 'Song to the Evening Star' from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner,[3] while at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1861 he played the title role in Henry Boisseaux and Théodore Lajarte's Le Neveu de Gulliver[5] but the piece was not a success and Lefort turned his back on dramatic works for the rest of his career, returning to salon singing.

In London in June 1872 before the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie he sang opposite Marie Dumas in her Une soirée perdue to a score by Pauline Viardot.