Claude Antonini

Claude Antonini was born on 11 April 1946 in Belfort, in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France. She did not come from a family of artists, and her family had expected her to become a schoolteacher. She went on to advanced studies in art history in Brittany, where she began to perform.

Antonini began singing in cabarets in Brittany and Paris, earning a reputation for setting little known poets to her own melodies and for the intensity of her interpretation. Her first LP, Claude Antonini chante Paol Keineg, appeared in 1976, followed in 1978 by Le Cœur Partisan, with texts by Rachid Boudjedra, Jean-Baptiste Clément, Pablo Neruda, Nâzım Hikmet, Gaston Couté and her own words.

She met the work of Gaston Couté through Vania Adriensens at the cabaret du Pétrin and became one of his best known interpreters. Ma fille a mal tourné, an album of Couté songs, came out in 1981, and La Cuvée du Cigalier, recorded with Jean Bernard Gainier and other musicians, in 2005. Other recordings included Claude Antonini chante et dit Jehan-Rictus (1993), La mort lui ricane, devoted to Maurice Rollinat (1996), Les Voleurs d'étoiles (1999), Petit à petits cubes, songs for children on poems by Armand Olivennes (2002), Mélodies louches (2004), Claudication du Monde (2011) and L'insurrection poétique (2015). From 1981 to 1983 she made radio programmes for the local station in Belfort, and in 1989 for the station in Orléans.

After moving to Orléans in 1986 she founded the Compagnie d'Ariane in 1990, describing it as a structure for cultural action and popular education. It produced her albums and shows and published the review Cloportes. She was also a painter, actress, multi-instrumentalist and director. Her books included the poetry collection 2000 moins quatre, which won the Prix Athanor in 1999, a biography of Armand Babel, poems, short stories, works on Couté and the memoir La Ramasseuse de miettes, an account of 50 years as a woman of the theatre, singer, poet, writer, painter and historian. In later years she performed with the trio Mélodies Louches.

Antonini lived in Paris and Brittany before moving to Orléans in 1986, when her second son, Martin Groff, was born. She later lived in Olivet. Her longtime companion was Gérard Groff, to whom she paid tribute in her 2012 book Hors ligne. She was a close friend of the singer Colette Magny and worked for many years with Orléans musicians including Vincent Viala, Bruno Girard and Gérard Dussoubs.

Claude Antonini died at her flat in Olivet, Loiret, on Saturday 15 August 2026. She was 80. The cause of death was not made public. Her death was reported by La République du Centre on 17 August, which described her as a rebel all her life and, like her friend Colette Magny, a figure of committed song and sung poetry in France. Her friend Gérard Dussoubs said she had been somewhat forgotten in recent years but that her 2009 concert at La Passerelle had left a mark on everyone. Her funeral took place on Wednesday 26 August 2026 at midday at the Cimetière des Ifs in Saran.

Antonini's recordings and books form one of the most sustained bodies of work devoted to Gaston Couté and to French poets outside the mainstream, from Jehan-Rictus and Maurice Rollinat to Paol Keineg and Armand Olivennes. Through the Compagnie d'Ariane she linked performance with popular education in the Loiret for more than thirty years.