Jean Pierre Félicien Mallefille (May 3, 1813 – November 24, 1868) was a French novelist and playwright. Mallefille was born in

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

. He wrote a number of plays, including ''Glenarvon'' (1835), ''Les sept enfants de Lara'' (1836), ''Le cœur et la dot'' (1852), and ''Les sceptiques'' (1867), as well as two comedies, and two novels, ''Le collier'' (1845) and ''La confession du Gaucho'' (1868). A

farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity o ...

of his, ''Les deux veuves'', later formed the basis of the libretto for

Bedřich Smetana Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded i ...

's opera ''

The Two Widows ''The Two Widows'' ( cz, Dvĕ vdovy) is a two-act Czech opera by Bedřich Smetana based on the libretto of Emanuel Züngel. The libretto is based on Jean Pierre Felicien Mallefille's one-act play ''Les deux veuves''. The opera was composed betwe ...

''. He also wrote a

scenario In the performing arts, a scenario (, ; ; ) is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the ''commedia dell'arte'', it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play, and was literally pi ...

in French that was to have been the basis of a

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

for the opera ''

Sardanapalo ''Sardanapalo'' or ''Sardanapale'' (Italian or French for '' Sardanapalus''), S.687, is an unfinished opera by Franz Liszt based on the 1821 verse play '' Sardanapalus'' by Lord Byron. Liszt was ambitious for his project, and planned to dovet ...

'' by

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

, but delivered it so late that Liszt, angered at his unreliability, had commissioned an Italian libretto from another writer; in the end the opera was never completed. Mallefille also had a relationship with

George Sand Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mallefille, Jean Pierre Felicien 1813 births 1868 deaths British Mauritius people 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights 19th-century French novelists French male novelists 19th-century French male writers Mauritian novelists