Jean Arnold

1919 Ath – 1965 southern France (in a car accident)



His real name was Adolphe Bouchart. He studied voice with Mme.Roch-Tondeur at the conservatory of La Lovière, and with Betty Dasnoy at the conservatory of Brussels. He started his career as a baritone.

Arnold in Carmen: as Escamillo, 1943 or earlier...

...and later as Don José

Don José again


As a tenor, he sang primarily at La Monnaie in Brussels:
Andrea Chénier (Giordano) – Radames (8 performances, 1950–1951)
Armide (Gluck) – Renaud (8 performances, 1948–1949)
Blanche-Neige (Schubert/von Weingartner) – Le prince (13 performances, 1947–1948)
Carmen (Bizet) – Don José (26 performances, 1945–1955)
Paillasse (Leoncavallo) – Canio (17 performances, 1945–1955)
La dame de pique (Chaikovskij) – German (5 performances, 1946–1947)
Don Juan (Mozart) – Don Ottavio (8 performances, 1947–1948)
Faust (Gounod) – Faust (38 performances, 1945–1952)
La fiancée vendue (Smetana) – Jeník (10 performances, 1948–1952)
Fidelio (Beethoven) – Florestan (14 performances, 1948–1952)
La fille du Far West (Puccini) – Dick Johnson (11 performances, 1945–1947)
La flûte enchantée (Mozart) – Tamino (3 performances, 1946–1947)
La foire de Sorotchintzi (Mussorgskij) – Gritsko (1 performance, 1944–1945)
Jules César (Händel) – Sextus Pompée (9 performances, 1946–1947)
Lohengrin (Wagner) – Lohengrin (3 performances, 1949–1950)
Lucie de Lammermoor (Donizetti) – Edgard (3 performances, 1947–1952)
Les maîtres-chanteurs de Nuremberg (Wagner) – Stolzing (7 performances, 1949–1950)
Manon (Massenet) – Chévalier Des Grieux (23 performances, 1947–1952)
Monna Vanna (Fevrier) – Prinzivalle (6 performances, 1949–1950)
Parsifal (Wagner) – Parsifal (9 performances, 1948–1951)
Les pêcheurs de perles (Bizet) – Nadir (19 performances, 1947–1952)
Le prince Igor (Borodin) – Vladimir Igorevitch (14 performances, 1946–1947)
Le roi d'Ys (Lalo) – Mylio (5 performances, 1949–1950)
Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) – Roméo (10 performances, 1946–1951)
La sirène au pays des hommes(Samuel) – Le prince (7 performances, 1945–1946)
Tosca (Puccini) – Mario Cavaradossi (26 performances, 1945–1954)
Werther (Massenet) – Werther (14 performances, 1946–1952)

In Verviers, he sang in:
Tosca, October 26th, 1945
Faust, 1945–1948
Carmen, November 14th, 1948 and December 14th, 1950
Werther, March 13th, 1948
Les pêcheurs de perles, March 17th, 1949

At the Opéra-Comique in Paris, he made his debut as Don José on May 25th, 1947. Other than that, he appeared in Ghent, Vichy, Lyon, Bordeaux...


Arnold as Nadir

Arnold as Roméo

Arnold as Werther

Arnold in Manon

Arnold as Canio

Jean in Hérodiade


Arnold with two very different Parsifal hairdos



Arnold as Cavaradossi


I wish to thank Christian Torrent for all the information and pictures on this page.
Reference: Claude-Pascal Perna's extraordinary photo collection
Archives digitales de la Monnaie
Richard T. Soper: Belgian opera houses and singers, The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1999.

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