Xavier Depraz

Xavier Depraz

Born: April 22, 1926
Died: October 18, 1994
in Albert, Somme, France
Xavier Depraz, né Xavier Marcel Delaruelle (22 April 1926 – 18 October 1994) was a French opera singer and actor.

Born in Albert (Somme), Depraz was a bass at the Paris Opéra until 1971. He took part in the premieres of operas by Marcel Landowski and Sergei Prokofiev. He also appeared as an actor, first on television, where he played the role of Ursus in The Man who laughs by Jean Kerchbron, then on the big screen.

Depraz entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1947 where he attended the classes of Fernand Francell for singing, Louis Musy for the stage and René Simon for theatre. He participated in the premieres of several operas: Marcel Landowski's Le Rire de Nils Halerius (1951) and Le Fou, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites and, in concert version, Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel (1954). In the 1953 Paris premiere of The Rake's Progress at the Opéra-Comique Depraz was "a splendid Nick Shadow". He also sang in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Verdi's Rigoletto, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Massenet's Don Quichotte and Thaïs among others. For his appearance as Méphistophélès in Monte Carlo in 1959 one reviewer commented "Xavier Depraz, immensely tall, and surprisingly thin and angular for an operatic bass, produced a suitably resonant and cavernous voice, and histrionically was satisfyingly demonic".

He also appeared at the French provincial opera houses, Glyndebourne and Venice, and was appointed a professor of opera at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1973.

In 1971, he began a career as an actor in film and television.

His recordings include Une éducation manquée (Pausanias), Les Pêcheurs de perles (Nourabad), Romeo et Juliette (Frère Laurence), Carmen (Zuniga for Beecham and Haitink), Renard, Dialogues des Carmélites (Le Marquis de la Force) and the Duruflé Requiem.

Depraz died in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs (Isère) on 18 October 1994.

Source: Article "Xavier Depraz" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies for Xavier Depraz...

Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Title: Carmen - Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Character: Zuniga
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie
Don José is a guard who begins an affair with the tempestuous Carmen. He is imprisoned and loses his job, then flees with her to the mountains. When the relationship starts to break down José refuses to acknowledge it and will not leave, even when he gets news that his mother is dying. Carmen, meanwhile, has taken up with the bullfighter Escamillo. Bizet's most famous opera is brought to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera by Sir Peter Hall, with Maria Ewing and Barry McCauley heading an international cast.
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For a Cop's Hide
Title: For a Cop's Hide
Character: Kasper
Released: September 9, 1981
Type: Movie
Victim of manipulation, Cop Choucas is wanted for two murders and searched for by every cop in town.
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The Bronte Sisters
Title: The Bronte Sisters
Character: Monsieur Hager
Released: May 9, 1979
Type: Movie
In a small presbytery in Yorkshire, England, living under the watchful eyes of their aunt and father, a strict Anglican pastor, the Bronte sisters write their first works and quickly become literary sensations.
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Butterfly on the Shoulder
Title: Butterfly on the Shoulder
Character: Michel Carrabo
Released: May 3, 1978
Type: Movie
On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes up in a strange clinic without remembering who brought him there. The doctor insists he hallucinated, but it's not long before he obtains evidence that it wasn't a dream.
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Lucky Luke: The Ballad of the Daltons
Title: Lucky Luke: The Ballad of the Daltons
Character: (voice)
Released: March 10, 1978
Type: Movie
The story opens in a Western saloon, where a young musician with a banjo begins to tell a tale of Lucky Luke and his sworn enemies the Dalton brothers: Joe, William, Jack and Averell. Luke has, once again, as he has done many times before, thrown the four outlaws into jail. The prison is also the abode of a guard dog named Rin Tin Can (Rantanplan in the original French language version).
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Death of a Corrupt Man
Title: Death of a Corrupt Man
Character: Marcel
Released: December 7, 1977
Type: Movie
In the middle of the night, deputy Philippe Dubaye wakes up his old friend Xavier Maréchal with disturbing news: he has just killed Serrano, a racketeer with extant political connections. Serrano kept proofs of Dubaye's involvement in corrupt dealings and was poised to use them against the deputy. Xavier readily agrees to cover up for his old pal Philippe, but he soon runs into difficulties. Nobody believes Dubaye's alibi. And everybody -- influential personalities, powerful businessmen, dubious go-betweens and the police -- wants to get hold of the documents that served to blackmail Dubaye; by all possible means...
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The Gang
Title: The Gang
Character: Jo
Released: January 19, 1977
Type: Movie
In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as "the front-wheel drive gang". The police attempt to stop their crime spree with little success, but how long will their luck last?
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Cher Victor
Title: Cher Victor
Released: June 6, 1975
Type: Movie
A pair of elderly men, friends for 40 years, find their relationship stressed when they set up housekeeping together in order to save money. Exploring similar ground to that covered in Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple, which spawned a movie and a television series, Ce Cher Victor explores the tragic and dramatic aspects of the story. The two friends, meek, sensitive Anselme (Bernard Blier) and blustering Victor (Jacques Dufilho) are swiftly driven apart by circumstances.
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Title: Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
Character: Self
Released: January 12, 1975
Type: TV
A talk show presented by Michel Drucker
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A Pain in the Ass
Title: A Pain in the Ass
Character: Louis Randoni
Released: September 20, 1973
Type: Movie
Ralf Milan, a hitman, arrives in Montpellier to kill an important witness. He checks in a hotel without knowing that his neighbour has become neurotic after his wife left him.
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Title: The Accursed Kings
Character: Jacques de Molay, Grand Maître du Temple
Released: December 21, 1972
Type: TV
It is the start of the 14th century and Philip IV the Fair reigns supreme over France. His three sons would rule after him. Isabelle, his only daughter, is married to King Edward II of England. Under Philip's reign, France is great but its people are unhappy. Only one power dares to stand up to him: the order of the Knights Templar. When the last Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, is burned at the stake, he curses Philip and so begins a dark period, full of blood and violence, death and tears ...
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The Right to Love
Title: The Right to Love
Released: August 15, 1972
Type: Movie
The tragedy of Helene and her husband Pierre, whose life is shattered when Pierre is kept as a political prisoner, while Helene is denied the right to visit him. A growing fear of losing her husband to tuberculosis takes over Helene, who does all she can to meet him, even for one last time.
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L'Atlantide
Title: L'Atlantide
Character: Bielowsky
Released: February 24, 1972
Type: Movie
Two young French officers get lost in the Sahara desert and find themselves prisoners of Antinéa, who rules over the lost city of Atlantis. Under her evil influence, one of them, blinded by his love for her, loses his mind and goes so far as to murder his comrade... Jean Kerchbron adapts Pierre Benoît's book for this film, which is more concerned with social reflection than fantasy.
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Title: The Man Who Laughs
Character: Ursus
Released: November 8, 1971
Type: TV
A three-episode series, based on the novel of the same title by Victor Hugo, telling of the adventures of two children, a blind girl and a badly scared boy, who are rescued and looked after by a vagabond.
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The Man Who Laughs
Title: The Man Who Laughs
Character: Ursus
Released: November 8, 1971
Type: Movie
A three part film, based on the novel of the same title by Victor Hugo, telling of the adventures of two children, a blind girl and a badly scared boy, who are rescued and looked after by a vagabond.
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Title: Cadet Rousselle
Character: Self
Released: November 4, 1971
Type: TV
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Title: Samedi soir
Character: Self
Released: January 9, 1971
Type: TV
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Would-Be Gentleman
Title: Would-Be Gentleman
Character: Le Grand Turc
Released: December 28, 1968
Type: Movie
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme satirizes attempts at social climbing and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and the vain, snobbish aristocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a "gentleman" was by definition nobly born, and thus there could be no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman.
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Paris la belle
Title: Paris la belle
Character: Singer
Released: April 30, 1960
Type: Movie
A look at Paris in 1928 in black and white and then color sequences filmed in the same places in 1959.