Irène Joachim (13 March 1913 – 20 April 2001) was a French soprano and later a voice teacher. She was the daughter of the German officer Herman Joachim and the French violinist Suzanne Chaigneau, and the granddaughter of the violinist Joseph Joachim. Bilingual in French and German, she learned violin and piano as a child.
Before the First World War, she moved with her parents from Paris to Berlin, where the family remained during the conflict. Her father died of tuberculosis in 1917, and she returned to France in autumn 1918, initially living with an aunt; her mother returned in 1920. Privately educated because of health difficulties and her mother's professional commitments, she studied with Jeanne Favart and devoted afternoons to violin, piano, and solfège. She heard musicians including Emanuel Feuermann, Claire Croiza, Germaine Lubin, Marya Freund, and the Capet Quartet, and later met Thibaud, Tansman, Casals, and Ravel during visits to Chicago with her mother. She eventually stopped studying violin but continued piano.
At Jean Gehret's encouragement, Joachim began voice lessons with Germaine Chevalet in 1933. In October 1935 she entered the Paris Conservatoire, studying with Suzanne Cesbron-Viseur and later with Georges Viseur and Pierre Chéreau. She supported herself by singing in choirs and also appeared at the Concerts of the Conservatoire Society. During her final months at the Conservatoire in 1938, she made her first recordings, performing lieder by Brahms and Mozart.
Joachim made her Opéra-Comique debut on 2 February 1939 as Nanthilde in Samuel-Rousseau's The Good King Dagobert. Her roles there included Micaëla, Hélène in An Unsuccessful Education, Marguerite in Fragonard, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Mélisande in Pelléas and Mélisande, the Wife in The Poor Sailor, Rozenn in The King of Ys, and Sophie in Werther. She also created the roles of Léda in Amphitryon 38, Ginèvra in Ginèvra, Isabelle in Guignol, Madeleine in Marion, and Azénor in The Nightingale of Saint-Malo.
She became especially celebrated as Mélisande, first performing the part at the Opéra-Comique on 12 September 1940 and returning to it in France and abroad until 1952. She recorded the role in April and May 1941 under Roger Désormière, having studied it with Georges Viseur and received guidance on stage deportment from Mary Garden, the role's creator. Her first performance opposite Jacques Jansen's Pelléas was on 20 April 1941. After the war, she continued her operatic work while developing a productive recital partnership with Jane Bathori and later giving radio broadcasts with other accompanists. She also took part in the premieres of Pierre Boulez's The Sun of Waters and works by Henri Dutilleux, Wiener, and Nigg, and was admired for her exceptionally clear diction.
Joachim was an accomplished interpreter of German lieder by composers including Schubert, Schumann, and Berg. Her recordings included the landmark complete Pelléas and Mélisande, excerpts from Delannoy's Ginèvra, songs by Debussy, Gounod, Yves Nat, and members of Les Six, as well as traditional French and German songs. She received Grand Prix du Disque awards for Debussy songs in 1949, Berg lieder in 1950, and Carl Maria von Weber lieder in 1959, the last recorded with pianist Hélène Boschi. After her Opéra-Comique contract ended in 1956, she remained active in recitals and broadcasting. She taught singing at the Schola Cantorum from 1954 to 1962 and became a professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1963.
Her work also included films. While still at the Conservatoire, she supplied the voice of a cabaret singer in Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths (1936) and appeared in La Marseillaise (1937), singing while accompanying herself. She appeared and sang in Robert Bresson's Angels of Sin (1943) and Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage (1951). In Marcel Carné's Gates of the Night (1946), she was among the first performers to sing Kosma's “Dead Leaves,” alongside Yves Montand.
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