The Belgian soprano Jodie Devos has died of breast cancer at the age of 35. She performed as recently as April 30 at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, but her condition deteriorated rapidly. Born in Libramont-Chevigny in Belgium, Devos went on to study at the Institut de Musique et de Pédagogie in Namur and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In 2014, she won second prize and the audience prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Her breakthrough on record came with a thrilling Offenbach album (Alpha, 3/19), the first of three solo albums on Alpha Classics, which prompted Edward Seckerson to comment that Devos ‘delivers all that is required of her, and more, with the apparent ease of one who knows how important it is to conceal the difficulty’. This recording was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice and was shortlisted for the 2019 Gramophone Awards.

Devos’s next solo album, a programme of English song with the pianist Nicolas Kruger called ‘And Love Said …’ (Alpha, 3/21), was another Editor’s Choice and was described by Alpha Classics’s Didier Martin as ‘an intimate portrait of Jodie, tracing her journey from her native Belgium to England, where she studied, and France, where she settled’. This album – described by Hugo Shirley as ‘a recital that bristles with life and love, at once engaging, beguiling and moving’ – concludes with a beautiful rendition of Freddie Mercury’s ‘You take my breath away’, whose tenderness and artless simplicity now seems doubly poignant.

James Jolly’s Gramophone podcast with Jodie Devos about this album is still available:

Devos’s third and, tragically, final solo album, ‘Bijoux perdus’ (Alpha, 11/22), a tribute to the 19th-century Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel, was described by Mark Pullinger as ‘a treasure trove of discoveries’.

On stage, Devos’s extensive repertoire included the title role in Delibes’s Lakmé, Adèle (Die Fledermaus), Alice (Le comte Ory), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Eurydice (Orpheus in the Underworld), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), The Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte), Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), Gilda (Rigoletto) and Marie (La fille du regiment).

Didier Martin commented: ‘This news, so unreal and so unfair, is deeply shocking for us all. Jodie was only 35 and at the height of her talent. We know how much she was loved by her colleagues, the entire music community and, of course, the public.’ As well as her three solo albums, Devos was, in Didier Martin’s words, ‘an enthusiastic participant in many other recordings, with friends and musicians who all praised her incredible talent and kindness’.