During the height of his 30-year career, he was confronted with stellar competition from a host of superlative operatic basses, including his fellow countrymen Jean-François Delmas (whose sonorous voice he particularly admired), Pedro Gailhard, Juste Nivette, Hippolyte Belhomme and Marcel Journet. Other rivals included Polish-born Édouard de Reszke, Bohemian-born Wilhelm Hesch, the Italians Francesco Navarini and Vittorio Arimondi and, from a younger generation of singers, the Russians Lev Sibiriakov and Feodor Chaliapin and the Pole Adamo Didur. He more than held his own in this exalted company, remaining, then as now, the paragon of sophisticated and graceful vocalism.