|
Léon Pillet
Léon Pillet (6 December 1803 – 20 March 1868),Huebner 1992. was a 19th-century French journalist, civil servant, and director of the Paris Opera from 1840 to 1847. A political appointee, he was probably the least successful director of the Paris Opera in the 19th century.Fulcher 1987, p. 103; Gerhard 1998, p. 35. Early life and training Born Raymond-François-Léon Pillet in Paris,Parturier 1942, p. 163. he was the son of Fabien Pillet (1772–1855), who was a journalist and French administrator.Larousse 1874vol. 12, p. 1015 After attending the Lycée Napoléon (now the Lycée Henri-IV), Léon Pillet continued his studies in law and joined the offices of an attorney by the name of Mauguin.Vapereau 1858p. 1449 Journalist He took part in the founding of the ''Nouveau Journal de Paris'' in 1827, serving mainly as its drama critic. Later, when the suppression of the privileges of the major journals gave more leeway to the enterprise, he became its editor, transforming it into a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be known more simply as the . Classical ballet as it is known today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral and important part of the company. Currently called the , it mainly produces operas at its modern 2,723-seat theatre Opéra Bastille which opened in 1989, and ballets and some classical operas at the older 1,979-seat Palais Garnier which opened in 1875. Small scale and contemporary works are also staged in the 500-seat Amphitheatre under the Opéra Bastille. The company's annual budget is in the order of 200 million euros, of which €100M come from the French state and €70M from box office receipts. With this money, the company runs the two houses and supports a large permanent staff, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Foucher
Paul-Henri Foucher (21 April 1810 – 24 January 1875) was a French playwright, theatre and music critic, political journalist, and novelist. Biography Early career Foucher was born in Paris and began his career as an employee in the offices of the War Department.Glaeser, p. 258. One day he visited the poet Alexandre Soumet, who asked Foucher whether he had read his brother-in-law's play ''Amy Robsart''. (Foucher's older sister Adèle had married Victor Hugo in 1822.) "If you have not read it, there are some fine scenes in it." Later Foucher asked Hugo if he could look at the play, and Hugo, who had been planning to burn it, instead gave it to Foucher and consented to let him revise it. Hugo had written the first three acts himself at the age of nineteen. He had then shown it to Soumet, who had disliked it, so Hugo had given his approval for Soumet to alter and finish it. The play combined comedy and tragedy, and Foucher, under the influence of the enormous success of Shakespeare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Burgmüller
Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller, generally known as Friedrich Burgmüller (4 December 1806 – 13 February 1874) was a German pianist and composerPhilip J. Bone''The Guitar and Mandolin. Biographies of celebrated players and composers for these instruments'' (London: Schott and Co., 1914)./ref> during the Romantic period. He is perhaps best known for his three collections of children's etudes (or "teaching pieces") for the piano, particularly his Op. 100 "25 Études faciles et progressives" (25 Easy and Progressive Studies) for early intermediate students. The other two collections, for more advanced students, were Op. 105 and 109. Life Friedrich Burgmüller was born in Ratisbon (at that time part of the Principality of Regensburg, Confederation of the Rhine). His father Friedrich August Burgmüller and his younger brother Norbert Burgmüller were also composers. His mother was pianist and singer Therese von Zandt. He moved to Kassel in 1829 to study with Ludwig Spohr and Mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Charles Adam (; 24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856) was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets ''Giselle'' (1841) and '' Le corsaire'' (1856), his operas ''Le postillon de Lonjumeau'' (1836) and ''Si j'étais roi'' (1852) and his Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" (Midnight, Christians, 1844, known in English as "O Holy Night"). Adam was the son of a well-known composer and pianist, but his father did not wish him to pursue a musical career. Adam defied his father, and his many operas and ballets earned him a good living until he lost all his money in 1848 in a disastrous bid to open a new opera house in Paris in competition with the Opéra and Opéra-Comique. He recovered, and extended his activities to journalism and teaching. He was appointed as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, France's principal music academy. Together with his older contemporary Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giselle
''Giselle'' (; ), originally titled ''Giselle, ou les Wilis'' (, ''Giselle, or The Wilis''), is a romantic ballet (" ballet-pantomime") in two acts with music by Adolphe Adam. Considered a masterwork in the classical ballet performance canon, it was first performed by the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 28 June 1841, with Italian ballerina Carlotta Grisi as Giselle. It was an unqualified triumph. It became hugely popular and was staged at once across Europe, Russia, and the United States. The ghost-filled ballet tells the tragic, romantic story of a beautiful young peasant girl named Giselle and a disguised nobleman named Albrecht, who fall in love, but when his true identity is revealed by his rival, Hilarion, Giselle goes mad and dies of heartbreak. After her death, she is summoned from her grave into the vengeful, deadly sisterhood of the Wilis, the ghosts of unmarried women who died after being betrayed by their lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jérusalem
''Jérusalem'' is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was to be an adaptation and partial translation of the composer's original 1843 Italian opera, ''I Lombardi alla prima crociata''. It was the one opera which he regarded as the most suitable for being translated into French and, taking Eugène Scribe's advice, Verdi agreed that a French libretto was to be prepared by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, who had written the libretto for Donizetti's most successful French opera, ''La favorite''. The opera received its premiere performance at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris on 26 November 1847. The maiden production was designed by Paul Lormier (costumes), Charles Séchan, Jules Diéterle and Édouard Desplechin (sets of Act I, Act II, scene 1, Act III scene 1, and Act IV), and Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry (sets for Act II, scene 2 and Act III, scene 2). Composition history The director of the Paris Opéra, Léon Pillet, had invited Verdi to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nestor Roqueplan
Louis-Victor-Nestor Roqueplan lso sometimes spelled Rocoplan(16 September 1805 – 24 April 1870) was a French writer, journalist, and theatre director. Early life and career Nestor Roqueplan was born near Montréal, Aude, and was the younger brother of the Romantic painter Camille Roqueplan. He first studied in Marseille, where he completed his secondary education in law, but moved to Paris in 1825, where he was able to publish several literary essays, and joined ''Le Figaro'' in 1827, becoming its editor-in-chief with Victor Bohain, who had purchased the paper that year for 30,000 francs. Roqueplan was considered a dandy, and witty and caustic as a writer. He was an amateur magician, and in about 1830 invented the silk braid trim on trouser seams, which became highly fashionable. He wrote as a critic, and in 1833 he fought a duel with a Colonel Gallois, who was offended by an article in ''Le Figaro''. Roqueplan was wounded but recovered. Roqueplan also served as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Prophète
''Le prophète'' (''The Prophet'') is a grand opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer, which was premiered in Paris on 16 April 1849. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, after passages from the ''Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations'' by Voltaire. The plot is based on the life of John of Leiden, Anabaptist leader and self-proclaimed "King of Münster" in the 16th century. Performance history After the brilliant success of their grand opera ''Les Huguenots'' (1836), Meyerbeer and his librettist Scribe decided to collaborate again on a piece based on a historical religious conflict. Meyerbeer's great personal wealth and his duties as official court composer to King Frederick William IV of Prussia meant that there was no hurry to complete the opera, and it was more than a decade in the composition and planning. ''Le prophète'' was first performed by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier on 16 April 1849 in music#Opera, 1849. In the audie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le diable'' and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera 'decisive character'. Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a rich Jewish family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera '' Il crociato in Egitto'' was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Duc D'Albe
''Le duc d'Albe'' (its original French title) or ''Il duca d'Alba'' (its later Italian title) is an opera in three acts originally composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1839 to a France, French language libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. Its title, which translates as ''The Duke of Alba'', refers to its protagonist Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba. The work was intended for performance at the Paris Opéra. However, William Ashbrook notes that "Rosine Stoltz, the director's mistress, disliked her intended role of Hélène and Donizetti put the work aside when it was half completed".Ashbrook 1998, p. 1263 Donizetti then abandoned the score in favour of continuing to work simultaneously on both ''L'ange de Nisida'' and ''L'elisir d'amore'', and thus it was nearly 34 years after the composer's death that it was completed by his former pupil Matteo Salvi and received its first performance in an Italian translation and under its Italian title ''Il duca d'Alba'' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of many of the most successful grand operas and opéras-comiques. Born to a middle-class Parisian family, Scribe was intended for a legal career, but was drawn to the theatre, and began writing plays while still in his teens. His early years as a playwright were unsuccessful, but from 1815 onwards he prospered. Writing, usually with one or more collaborators, he produced several hundred stage works. He wrote to entertain the public rather than educate it. Many of his plays were written in a formulaic manner which aimed at neatness of plot and focus on dramatic incident rather than naturalism, depth of characterisation or intellectual substance. For this he was much criticised by intellectuals, but the "well-made play" remained established in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_portrait_-_LeMonde2005.jpg "Click for more on -> Paul Foucher")
