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Daughter of tenor Mario Altéry (1892-1974), soprano Mathé Altéry made a name for herself with her wide repertoire of arias and songs. Born Marie-Thérèse Altare in Paris on September 12, 1927, she began singing at a very early age in Cherbourg, where she was already earning the nickname of the "Cherbourg nightingale". After singing lessons, she made her debut as a chorister at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1950 in the operetta Annie du far-west, and was noticed at a singing competition in Deauville by the conductor Raymond Legrand, with whom she recorded the song for René Char's film Les Belles de nuit (1952). After recording a children's album, Peter Pan - Alice au Pays des Merveilles (1955), she took part in the first Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano (Switzerland) in 1956, singing "Le Temps perdu". From 1955 onwards, she recorded a series of albums for the Pathé label under the sign of the number 13, in a range of very different styles: 13 Valses de la Belle Époque (1955), 13 Mélodies de la Belle Époque (Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros, 1957), 13 Airs de Films (1957), 13 Extraits d'Opérettes (1958), 13 Valses Viennoises (1959), 13 Berceuses et Sérénades (1960), 13 Valses Romantiques (1961) and 13 Plus Beaux Noëls (1962). After performing Oscar Straus's operetta Les Trois valses in 1960 under the direction of Franck Pourcel, the soprano was chosen to double the voices of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965). Popular abroad, Mathé Altéry recorded the albums 13 Succès de Comédies Musicales (1966) and Les Plus Belles Chansons du Monde (1968) and toured abroad. She collaborated with Lucien Lupi and André Dassary, and appeared in Roland Arday's operetta Bon Week-End Conchita! (1970). After an eclipse of several years, she returned to song in 1988 in Francis Lopez's operetta, Rêves de Vienne, which ran for a year at the Théâtre de l'Eldorado. Mathé Altéry then appeared on Pascal Sevran's television shows. In 2006, she was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
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