When was François Lay born?
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François Lay, better known under the stage name Lays (14 February 1758 – 30 March 1831), was a French baritone and tenor opera singer. Originally destined for a career in the church, Lays was recruited by the Paris Opéra in 1779. He soon became a leading member of the company, in spite of quarrels with the management. Lays enthusiastically welcomed the French Revolution and became involved in politics with the encouragement of his friend Bertrand Barère. Barère's downfall led to Lays being imprisoned briefly, but he soon won back the public and secured the patronage of Napoleon, at whose coronation and second wedding he sang. This association with the Emperor caused him trouble when the Bourbon monarchy was restored and Lays's final years were darkened by disputes over his pension, mounting debts, the death of his only son and his wife's illness. After a career spanning more than four decades, he died in poverty.
François Lays
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Lays was born in the village of La Barthe-de-Neste in the region of Bigorre in what was then Gascony. His family intended him for a career in the Church at the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame-de-Garaison (Monléon-Magnoac), where he stayed until he was 17, receiving a solid musical education as a chorister and developing a remarkable baritenor voice. He was transferred to Auch for a short while to study philosophy and work as a teacher before returning to Garaison to study theology. In 1778, the canons of the convent gave Lays a grant to study for a doctorate in theology in Toulouse. Lays was now determined to abandon a career in the Church and became increasingly active as a singer, joining the cathedral choir and accepting invitations to perform at local salons. In Toulouse, Lays formed a lifelong friendship with the young lawyer Bertrand Barère, the future French Revolutionary politician and member of the Committee of Public Safety. Barère introduced Lays to the city's Enlightenment circles. On Easter Sunday 1779, Lays was singing the liturgy in the cathedral when he was heard by the Intendant Royal of Languedoc. Following the recruitment practice then used by Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra), the Intendant decided to issue Lays with a royal ordinance (equivalent to a "lettre de cachet") obliging him to travel to Paris for an audition.
François Lays
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In late 1795, Lays was named Professor of Singing at the newly opened Paris Conservatoire. Four years later he resigned to avoid being involved in the quarrel then raging between the managements of the Conservatoire and the Opéra. Quéruel credits Lays with teaching two future stars of the Opéra: Madame Chéron and Mademoiselle Armand. The latter is a possibility;
the former had begun her career in 1784 under the name Mademoiselle Dozon, and is thus unlikely to have attended the Conservatoire more than a decade later. Lays did play a part in promoting her early career: he had auditioned her when she was a young unknown in 1782 and had facilitated her studies, entrusting her to the best singing teachers available.
François Lays
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Louis François was born on 14 January 1742 to François Perrin (d. 1748) and his wife Marguerite Marque de Farges (d. 1754). Louis was twelve years old when his mother died and was placed in the care of his uncle, an officer who agreed to take him into the regiment he commanded. Louis went to Valenciennes in 1755 where he learned the profession of a soldier in the Regiment of Picardy.
Louis François Perrin de Précy
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The year 1798 was a turning point in Lays's private life: Marie Barbé, with whom he had been living for several years, gave birth to a daughter and Lays, to legitimise the child, decided to marry his companion, even though it was against his father's wishes. Old Lay was furious that his eldest child, who enjoyed a successful career, was marrying a foreign woman with no property. The couple went on to have four more children, including one son who would unwittingly cause Lays enormous grief.
François Lays
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In January 1797, Lays enjoyed one of the biggest successes of his career when he sang the lead role in Grétry's "Anacréon chez Polycrate". The takings from this opera (9,354 livres on the first night alone) helped rescue the disastrous finances of the Théâtre de la République et des Arts (as the Opéra had been renamed). If the quality of his voice was universally admired, his lack of physical elegance, his short and stocky build and the southern accent he never completely managed to lose predisposed Lays to comic rather than dramatic roles, particularly middle-aged buffo characters, in which, "singing of love and good wine, he proved to be sublime". Anacreon was one such role. Lays played the character again in 1803 in the opera Cherubini dedicated to the ancient Greek poet. A few decades later, Castil-Blaze – referring to the work by Grétry – commented:
The opera sparkles with charming melodies; the role of Anacreon is the most beautiful, the most complete ever written for Lays, the marvellous sonority of whose voice was deployed so well in the ascending virtuoso passage "Prends, prends emporte mon or, mes trésors pour jamais." The trio "Livre ton cœur à l'espérance" makes a delightful impression." (Castil-Blaze, "L' Académie impériale de musique (...) – De 1645 à 1855", Paris, Castil-Blaze, 1855, II, p. 61)
François Lays
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He was born François-Étienne Lévesque in Quebec City, the son of François Lévesque and Catherine Trottier Desauniers Beaubien. Lévesque studied law with Jean-Antoine Panet and Alexis Caron, was called to the bar in 1796 and set up practice in Montreal. He served as a major in the Quebec City militia. Lévesque lived outside of the province, probably in New York, from 1807 to 1811, when he returned to Montreal. He was married twice: to Cécile Robert in 1796 and then to Sarah Ann Morriss in 1823. He did not run for reelection in 1804. Lévesque died in Montreal at the age o5 51.
François Lévesque (lawyer)
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Born to Lucy Anna May of Petersburg, Virginia and her husband, Richmond merchant John Olmstead Lay, Henry Champlin Lay was baptized in historic St. John's Church although his parents were members of the city's Monument Church parish. His mother died when Henry was 10, and his father six years later. Lay attended the Richmond Academy run by Socrates Maupin. He then entered the University of Virginia on September 1, 1839 (before reaching his sixteenth birthday) and graduated with a Master of Arts degree on July 4, 1842. Lay then tutored the children of General William H. Broadnax at Kingston in Dinwiddie County for nearly two years.
Henry C. Lay
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Sil Lai was born in Maui, Hawaii. The father listed on her birth certificate was a Caucasian American serviceman and her biological mother is ethnically Chinese and born in Hong Kong. Her parents met during the Vietnam War. In 1975, her parents divorced when she was the age of five. After the divorce, her family moved to Seminole County, Florida. For the early part of her life, she believed she was racially Caucasian and Chinese due to her father's insistence that her skin color was a result of her being born in Hawaii. At age 14, Sil Lai learned that the man she called her father was not biologically related to her and that her biological father was a black Air America pilot with whom her mother had an affair. Sil Lai received her GED at age 15 and spent the much of her time as a teenager running away from home and battling alcoholism.
Sil Lai Abrams
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François Leleux (born July 1971 in Croix, Nord) is a French oboist, conductor, and professor. His professional career began at 18 when he became principal oboe at the Paris Opera. He went on to win a solo position at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and currently does some concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as putting out CDs. He is married to violinist Lisa Batiashvili.
François Leleux