Louis Azéma

A French bass who spent twenty-five years at the Opéra-Comique and later ran the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Jacques Isnardon, made his debut at Lyon in 1901 in Les Huguenots, and sang at Nantes and The Hague. He and his wife, the mezzo-soprano Jeanne Billa-Azéma, joined the Opéra-Comique in 1905. He sang there until 1930, creating Yakusidé in the first Paris Madama Butterfly and taking part in the first performances of Dukas's Ariane et Barbe-bleue and Rabaud's Mârouf. He was also a painter, and portraits of his were hung in the Opéra-Comique.