The Belgian soprano with a career as brief as it was rich and with a graceful and endearing personality passed away on Sunday June 16 at the age of 35, after battling devastating breast cancer.
It was one of the most beautiful and technically sound voices to emerge in recent years. That of a coloratura soprano as much at ease in baroque as in French romanticism. A precious Mozartian of which we could only praise the freshness of the broadcast, the equal projection across the entire range of the register, the legato nourished with naturalness. Jodie Devos loved art as much as life and proved it by performing and giving her best until the last breath, with the passion and courage that characterized her. She died on Sunday June 16 at the age of 35, following a devastating breast cancer.
Born on October 10, 1988 in Libramont, in Walloon Belgium, she grew up in nature in Lahérie, where her father raised ducks. So much for the earthy frankness of his personality. As for physical grace, it came from learning dance which preceded learning the piano and singing. With a master’s degree at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London and a second prize at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition – although the public had awarded her their own, that of the heart – she set out to conquer the lyrical planet a long time ago. barely ten years old.
Its solid bass, its fruity and fleshy midrange, its fiery treble
From the Chorégies d’Orange to the Paris Opera, via the Opéra-Comique, the Capitole de Toulouse and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the French public then adopted her, without reservation, as Adèle in the bat by Johann Strauss II, as Alice and Countess Adele of Count Ory by Rossini, as Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute by Mozart, as Sister Constance of Dialogues of the Carmelites de Poulenc, or even in the Olympia des Hoffmann’s Tales of Offenbach. At the same time, she had recorded several discs for the Alpha Classics label reflecting the extent of her palette, from Stabat Mater of Pergolèse to a tribute to his compatriot Marie Cabel, creator, among others, of the lost jewel by Adolphe Adam, in 19th century Paris.
If we bow to the originality of his proposals, imagined with the complicity of the musicologists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, it is his ideal interpretation of “Vorrei Spiegarvi, Oh Dio” in Cosi Fan Tutte of Mozart that we thought, on Sunday, of the announcement of his death. Its solid bass, its fruity and fleshy midrange, its ardent and radiant treble in flexibility, will now be sorely missed.
