Georges Thill | en

Georges Thill (14 December 1897 – 17 October 1984) was a French opera singer, often considered to be his country's greatest lyric-dramatic tenor. Born in Paris, his career lasted from 1924 to 1953, peaking during the 1930s.
A pupil of the Neapolitan tenor Fernando De Lucia (1860-1925), Thill made his opera debut at the Paris Opéra in 1924, and continued to perform there and at the Opéra-Comique for several decades. He also sang throughout Europe and in South American, proving highly successful at La Scala, the Rome Opera, the Verona Arena, the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Colón and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He sang 14 performances of seven roles over two seasons (1931-1932) at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, but he had difficulty fitting in with the unfamiliar American environment, experiencing health difficulties, and he was less well received by Met audiences as a consequence.
Thill made many 78-rpm discs of French, Italian and German operatic arias and recorded a complete performance of Massenet's Werther for French Columbia in 1931. These records are freely available on CD transfers. The best of them display the gleaming tone of his voice in its prime, as well as demonstrating his spotless taste, stylish phrasing and splendid diction. Thill also appeared in several French films including Louise (1939), based on the opera of the same name by Gustave Charpentier, directed by Abel Gance and featuring Grace Moore. .