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The Côte-Saint-André. A place, a story: rue Salomon

In the XIXe century, an oil press was in operation at the bottom of the rue du Lion-d’Or. Of the Guillot family who exploited it, posterity will only remember the name of their son, Marius Salomon, whose name appears on the plaque of a street in the district where he grew up.

Like any son of a bourgeois family, Marius, born in 1843, had started studying at the nearby Récollets convent. Then, without showing much interest, continued his studies, in Lyon then in Paris. Before joining the family business, getting married and continuing in parallel, to indulge in his passion for music.

He then learned the violin and the song, participated in the formation of the Philharmonic Society. And as a tenor, began to make a name for himself on the regional stages. His fate changed when, noticed in Marseille, he was introduced to the director of the Paris Opera who hired him.

A first big role in “Guillaume Tell”

He is 30 years old, begins a musical training, chooses the pseudonym of Salomon, in reference to the name “Les Salomones” of the family property. And gets his first major role in Rossini’s “William Tell”. He will then chain the title roles, will become the most popular tenor of the Parisian public.

Until health problems forced him to stop his career and to teach singing, almost until his death in 1916. Member of the committee for the erection of a statue of Berlioz in his hometown, Marius Salomon was present at his inauguration on September 28, 1890. He declaimed the poem by Jean Celle dedicated to the composer.

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