Renée Doria

Biography

Born Renée Dumazert in Perpignan, France, after a thorough musical training (piano, solfege, harmony) she turned to vocal study with Umberto Valdarmini, and made her singing debut in concert at the age of 18. Her official operatic debut took place in 1942, in Marseille, as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

After singing Constance in The Abduction from the Seraglio in Cannes under Reynaldo Hahn, and the three heroines (Olympia, Giulietta, Antonia) in Les contes d'Hoffmann in Strasbourg, opposite the great French bass-baritone Vanni Marcoux, she made her Paris debut at the Gaîté-Lyrique in 1943, as Lakmé, and the following year, made her debut at the Opéra-Comique, in the same role. Her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1947, as the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, was highly successful. Other roles at that house included: Leila in Les pêcheurs de perles, the title role in Mireille, Marguerite in Faust, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, Ophélie in Hamlet, Manon, Thaïs, as well as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Violetta in La traviata, etc.

Doria also sang in baroque music such as Rameau's Les Indes galantes, and contemporary works, such as Ravel's L'heure espagnole, and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. In thirty years of career, Doria sang an estimated sixty roles.

Renée Doria made several recordings, most notably, complete studio recordings of Contes d'Hoffmann (1948), Thais (1961), Mireille (1962), Massenet's Sapho (1978), and excerpts of Rigoletto, Faust, and Manon, opposite Alain Vanzo, as well as recitals of arias and songs.