Jeannette Pilou
Greek soprano who excelled in the French operatic repertoire
JEANNETTE PILOU, who has died aged 82, was a glamorous Italiantrained operatic soprano of Greek heritage and Egyptian birth who was closely associated with the French repertoire; she made an enchanting Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust and a fragile Mélisande in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande.
In Britain she gave an outstanding performance at Covent Garden in 1971 as an expressive Cio-cio San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a role she had performed the previous year at the Metropolitan Opera, where, according to The New York Times, she “sang with dramatic and musical detail that was often exquisite, and her Cio-cio San took on an affecting intensity”.
Jeannette Pilou, a diminutive figure with an undiminutive voice, was a singer of charm, character and intelligence. She was once described as “a little bit East, a little bit West – a Grecian Cleopatra”, and her looks and skin tone were often compared to Maria Callas. Much of the fascination with her performances lay in her glinting, high-cheekboned, Mediterranean beauty.
Mahler was her favourite composer and she disliked singing Wagner, although she would answer questions about her favourite role diplomatically, saying: “The one I am singing at the time.”
She was born Joanna Pilós in Alexandria, Egypt, on July 11 1937, one of four daughters of Panayotis Pilós, a cotton exporter. “When I was just a baby, my mother saw me becoming a brilliant star one day,” she said. As a child she was taken to see a touring production of Puccini’s La bohème in Alexandria.
After studying literature at an English college in the city she moved to Milan, taking voice lessons with Carla Castellani, the La Scala soprano. She claimed to practise for only an hour a day, but insisted that “a singer never stops studying.”
In 1958 she made her debut in Milan, where she lived for several decades, and went on to appear across Europe, including as Mimi in La bohème in Vienna in 1964 and the following year as an appealing Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata at the Wexford Festival in Ireland.
She became a member of the Vienna State Opera, scoring a notable success in 1972 in the title role of Massenet’s Manon, when she was described as “capricious, moving and sensuous”.
Jeannette Pilou was summoned to New York in October 1967 to play Juliette opposite Franco Corelli in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, but three days before her official debut she was asked to step in for an ailing Mirella Freni at a matinee performance. Juliette became one of her signature roles in America, along with Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen, often opposite the tenor Nicolai Gedda.
She had been due to revive her Juliette at the Met in 1986, but the opera house was keen to promote the promising young soprano Cecilia Gasdia and offered Jeannette Pilou a financial settlement to withdraw.
Moving to Athens, she coached young singers and appeared intermittently on stage, notably in a 1994 production of Poulenc’s La Voix humaine in which the audience hears only one side of an extended telephone conversation, her voice fresh, full and untiring during the long role.
In 1998 she let it be known that she would relish one last opportunity to sing, preferably in Pélleas et Mélisande, a work not previously staged in Greece. A new production was created for her in Athens, with the British baritone Thomas Allen, seven years her junior, as Pélleas.
The critic Rodney Milnes, while admitting that “whichever reference book one consults, she will not see 60 again”, declared that not a single allowance needed to be made for her years: “Her beautiful silvery tone was steady as a rock throughout the range and projected effortlessly into the huge hall.”
Jeannette Pilou, born July 11 1937, died April 27 2020