Irénée Berge

Irénée Bergé (February 1, 1867 – July 30, 1926) was a French composer, conductor and instructor who lived in the United States. In spite of confusions between his given name and “Irène”, Bergé was male. Early life and career According to one source he was born in Toulouse although other sources say Paris. He attended the Conservatoire de Paris where he studied with Jules Massenet and Théodore Dubois. Although not mentioned in his obituaries, Berge apparently also was a tenor. In an 1897 performance of Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, a reviewer noted “Irénée Bergé, a young tenor of excellent schooling, whose voice—though not too powerful—had a very agreeable timbre, and a very distinguished performance . He and that of the orchestra….had a grand success.” Before immigrating to the United States he was an assistant conductor at Covent Garden. to teach at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Corsica was written to a libretto by Frederick F. Schrader. It had its premiere in the week prior to November 13, 1910 on a bill with Joseph Carl Breil’s opera Love Laughs at Locksmiths (also with a libretto by Schrader) in Kingston, New York, as part of Breil’s touring opera company. A