Cécile Thévenet

Cécile Thévenet, in costume for Carmen, from a 1905 publication.

Cécile Thévenet was born in Bruges, the daughter of Alphonse Thévenet and Anne Van Vyve. Her father was a music teacher and baritone singer. She was raised and educated in Brussels.[1] Her brothers Pierre Thévenet (1870-1937) and Louis Thévenet (1874-1930) became painters.[2]

Cécile Thévenet sang with the Opéra-Comique in Paris. "Alike as a singer and an actress Mlle. Thévenet is a very great artist, a wonderfully clever creator of the characters she represents", commented one American publication in 1905.[1] In 1913 she sang the part of Euryclea in the premiere of Gabriel Fauré's Pénélope in Paris, with Lucienne Bréval in the title role.[3] She was also in the original cast of the Gustave Charpentier opera Julien, in 1913. She was known for her performances of Carmen.[4][5]

Other roles Thévenet sang included Musette in Leoncavallo's La bohéme (1899),[6] Leoncavallo's Zaza (1900),[7] Caroline in Die Fledermaus (1904), La Chouanne (1907),[8] the Nurse in Paul Dukas's Ariane et Barbe-bleue (1910), and Massenet's Thérèse (1913).[9]

Thévenet died after May 1914.[10]

• A photograph of Cécile Thévenet as Musette in La boheme (1900), at Getty Images.
• A photograph of Thévenet as Caroline in Die fledermaus (1904), at Getty Images.
• A photograph of Thévenet as Catherine in Le chemineau (1907), at Getty Images.