Actor, Operatic Director. He followed a distinguished career on the stage of Paris’ Comedie-Francaise with an equally noted one leading operatic productions on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in the Alsatian village of La Broque, he studied both voice and violin at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris, served with the French Resistance during World War II, and made his 1942 Comedie-Francaise bow in a cameo from Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac”. After playing Bernardo in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” the year following the joined the venerable theatre’s permanent company in 1944. Over the next 30 or so years Deiber undertook hundreds of roles large and small, comic and serious, in the works of Shakespeare, Racine, Moliere, and numerous lesser-known dramatists though his signature piece was the lovesick title hero of “Cyrano de Bergerac”, a part he assayed more than 150 times. As time went on he assumed directorial duties and won praise for his efforts, then in the late 1960s he ventured into opera. Deiber staged Charles Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette” for a 1967 Metropolitan Opera production, then in 1970 joined a Paris Opera staff then in the midst of condiderable problems. During a 1971 Metropolitan production of Jules Massenet’s “Werther” that featured off-stage drama due to threats against tenor Franco Corelli Deiber met his future wife, mezzo Christa Ludwig, then in 1972 was to return to New York to present Claude Debussy’s “Pelleas et Mellisande” with Judith Blegen. During his time in Paris he was also seen occasionally in French film and television; he lived out his retirement years in Austria and died from complications of a fall suffered at his home. (bio by: Bob Hufford)