Louis Girod

Girod was originally a violinist at the Concerts Lamoureux orchestra in Paris, then he studied voice at the Schola Cantorum (a private academy of music founded by Vincent d'Indy). He made his debut in Damnation de Faust at the Trocadero in Paris.

Next, he sang in Belgium for many years: first in Gent (1905/06), then in Liège, then in Antwerp (1908–10) and finally at La Monnaie in Brussels from 1910 to 1914. As a guest, he sang Don José in Trouville in July 1909.

His roles at La Monnaie were Werther, Wilhelm (Le chant de la cloche by d'Indy), Azaël (L'enfant prodigue by Debussy), Königssohn (Königskinder), Vladimir Petrovich (Ivan le terrible by Gunsbourg), Jean (Kaatje by Victor Buffin), both Massenet's and Puccini's des Grieux, Tamino, Wilhelm Meister, Sabatino (Proserpine by Saint-Saëns), Armand de Clerval (Thérèse by Massenet), Conrad (Le timbre d'argent by Saint-Saëns), Cavaradossi.

Then he must have returned to France, since I find him in La Rochelle and in Saintes in August 1915, singing concerts for wounded French soldiers. In 1919, he joined the troupe of the theater of Nantes, where he made his debut as des Grieux in Manon in September 1919 and sang Werther and Don José in October and Don José also in January 1920. In September 1920, he was Rodolfo at the Casino of Châtel-Guyon.

In 1929, he lived already in Le Havre (where he would die in 1948), directing a group of amateur opera singers.

Reference 1: La Monnaie archives; reference 2: Claude-Pascal Perna's Flickr channel; reference 3: Comoedia, 1 August 1909, 17 October 1919 & 27 January 1920; reference 4: Les Petites "A", 1 October 1929; reference 5: Le Monde Artiste, 8 & 29 October 1905; reference 6: Le Courrier de la Rochelle, 12 August 1915; reference 7: Le Phare de la Loire, 29 September 1919; reference 8: Riom républicain, 5 September 1920; reference 9: L'Indépendant de la Charente-Inférieure, 14 August 1915

I want to thank Georges Cardol for the picture (Jongleur).