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Alphonse J. Liébert
Victor Capoul, French tenor
n.d.
Carte de visite
Private collection of T. Max Hochstetler
LL/19817
Victor Capoul (27 February, 1839 - 18 February, 1924)
French tenor, Joseph-Amedee Victor Capoul was born in Toulouse on 27 February, 1839. In 1861, he made his debut at the Opera-Comique in "Le Chalet." His career was spent mostly in London, Paris and New York and he was best known for roles from Italian operas. In the first Italian production of "Otello" at the Metropolitan Opera Company on 11 January, 1892 he sang the role of Cassio. New York audiences were not overly fond of Italian operas in 1892 and it would take a few more years to gain audience enthusiasm. In 1904, Victor Capoul was serving as manager of L'Opera Paris when a company headquartered in Italy was formed to record operatic music on cylinder disks in Paris and Milan. He was one of the tenors whose voice appears on these rare disks (Societa Italiana Fonotipia) that exist in libraries today. Victor Capoul lost his entire fortune in speculation. His bitterness at losing his fortune led him to burn most of the mementos he had collected over his career. He died on 18 February, 1924.
(Kindly contributed by T. Max Hochstetler, June 2007)
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