Monsieur Bru

In the few internet sources that mention Bru at all, it has become prevalent to assume that his first name was Gaston. Well... the source for this assertion is the senior French voice teacher Roger Yaeche, and he also claimed that Bru sang at the Paris Opéra, and even "knew" of three precise performances – none of which stood the reality check. Not only is Bru missing from the general list of all Opéra singers until 1971, but of the three performances mentioned by Yaeche, two were sung by a different tenor (Edmond Vergnet), and the third was a complete invention since the Opéra was closed on the day in question, plus the opera allegedly given had not even been written at the time (Salome, in 1899!!!). So this is a proof (and not the only one, by the way) that whatever Roger Yaeche told about historical singers was pure fiction, and unless any real proof can be found, I'm convinced that also Bru may have had any given first name, except Gaston.

Bru was a concert singer; and from the frequency of his appearances, I'd say: singing concerts was his second job, or his hobby. He sang regularly at half-private society events: at a banquet of the Société libre des artistes français (an artist society) at an elegant restaurant in Paris on 15 February 1893; at the Geographical Society in Paris (March 1893); for the army (at the Varillon barracks in Évreux, 24 March 1895, where he stepped in for an Opéra-Comique tenor called Carbonne; at the Paris Cercle Militaire, an officers' club, 26 February 1901); two concerts with a choral society in Bellac called "Les enfants de Bellac" (April 1899, where he was ill-disposed, and July 1900); at the Université populaire (an adult education center) in Paris in January 1902. He got always very good reviews on those occasions (somewhat surprisingly if you know his records); he would typically sing operatic arias (Sigurd, Trovatore, Africaine, Philémon et Baucis), and the odd mélodie by Goublier, Hahn or Massenet. Those were never solo concerts, he appeared either with other singers or with instrumentalists, and normally sang just two pieces per evening. In the review of the 1895 Évreux concert, he was called "ténor léger des Concerts d'Harcourt"; the Concerts d'Harcourt were a society headed by conductor Eugène d'Harcourt that gave popular concerts, but I didn't find any review of a Harcourt concert with Bru. Was he perhaps a chorister there?

References: La Parisienne, 6 April 1895; Gil Blas, 28 February 1901; Journal des artistes, 12 and 19 February and 5 March 1893; Le Courrier du Centre, 7 and 20 April 1899; Le Nouvelliste de Bellac, 9 and 23 April 1899 as well as 1 and 15 July 1900; Le Monde artiste, 26 January 1902; Le Fin de siècle, 11 March 1893; Revue du Cercle militaire, 2 March 1901