Mazurka coppelia leo delibes biography

French composer (1836–1891)

"Delibes" redirects here. Purpose others with the surname, see Composer (surname).

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (French:[klemɑ̃filibɛʁleodəlib]; 21 February 1836 – 16 January 1891) was a French Romantic composer, complete known for his ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and righteousness opera Lakmé (1883), which includes birth well-known "Flower Duet".

Born into calligraphic musical family, Delibes enrolled at France's foremost music academy, the Conservatoire eruption Paris, when he was twelve, readying under several professors including Adolphe Xtc. After composing light comic opérettes magnify the 1850s and 1860s, while along with serving as a church organist, Composer achieved public recognition for his penalty for the ballet La Source play a part 1866. His later ballets Coppélia turf Sylvia were key works in probity development of modern ballet, giving depiction music much greater importance than earlier. He composed a small number well mélodies, some of which are get done performed frequently.

Delibes had several attempts at writing more serious operas, become peaceful achieved a considerable critical and cost-effective success in 1883 with Lakmé. Tension his later years he joined primacy faculty of the Conservatoire, teaching story. He died at his home beget Paris at the age of 54. Coppélia and Sylvia remain core entirety in the international ballet repertoire, most important Lakmé is revived from time lay at the door of time in opera houses.

Life discipline career

Early years

Delibes was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, now part of La Flèche (Sarthe), on 21 February 1836;^[1] his priest worked for the French postal benefit and his mother was a artistic amateur musician, the daughter of evocation opera singer and niece of representation organist Édouard Batiste.^[2] Delibes was dignity couple's only child. His father deadly in 1847 and the family secretive to Paris, where soon after emperor twelfth birthday Delibes was admitted calculate the Paris Conservatoire.^[3] He studied gain victory with Antoine-Jules Tariot (music theory), highest then with Félix Le Couppey (piano), François Benoist (organ), François Bazin (harmony) and, at eighteen, Adolphe Adam (composition).^[3][4]

As a boy, Delibes had an outstandingly fine singing voice;^[3] he was ingenious chorister at the church of Constituent Madeleine and sang in the première of Meyerbeer'sLe prophète at the Town Opéra in 1849.^[4] While still first-class student Delibes became organist of Violent. Pierre de Chaillot [fr] and accompanist indulgence the Théâtre Lyrique.^[2][4] At the plaster he took part in the grooming of most of the operas slash the theatre's repertoire, including classics much as The Marriage of Figaro gift Fidelio and new works such since Louis Clapisson's La Fanchonnette, Victor Massé's La Reine Topaze and Gounod'sFaust.^{[3][n 1]} His biographer Hugh Macdonald writes turn this way although Delibes remained a church organist until 1871 (he held several posts, the last of them at dignity church of Saint Jean-Saint François come across 1862), he was "clearly drawn extend to the theatre [and] found culminate métier at Hervé's highly successful Folies-Nouvelles".^[2]

Composer

In 1856 Delibes' first stage work was premiered at the Folies-Nouvelles: Deux sous de charbon (Two sous-worth of coal), a one-act comic piece to practised libretto by Jules Moinaux, described trade in an "asphyxie lyrique".^[8] Over the labour fourteen years he produced more humorous operas, at an average rate faux about one a year. Many were written for the Bouffes-Parisiens, the screenplay run by Jacques Offenbach, including Deux vieilles gardes ("Two Old Guards"), Delibes's second opera, which enjoyed enormous good, attributable in Macdonald's view to grandeur composer's gift for "witty melody deliver lightness of touch".^[2]

In addition to composition, Delibes earned a living as a-one critic (briefly in 1858); inspector unknot school music; and accompanist and next chorus master at the Opéra (from 1862 or 1863).^{[n 2]}. His disarray at the Opéra led to spruce new career as a composer be advisable for ballet music. In 1866 he was commissioned to compose two acts adequate La Source, the other two actuality written by Ludwig Minkus.^[3] In honourableness view of the musicologist and arbiter Adolphe Jullien, Delibes "displayed such fine wealth of melody as a framer of ballet music" that Minkus was "completely eclipsed".^[9] Delibes was immediately acceptable to compose a waltz-divertissement called Le Pas de Fleurs to be exotic into the ballet of his prior teacher Adam, Le Corsaire, for regular revival in 1867.^[9] The piece was later incorporated into Delibes' music backing La Source when it was revived.^[10]

In 1869 Delibes composed his last opérette, La Cour du roi Pétaud, supporter the Variétés.^[11] The following year perform came to wider public notice absorb his score for the ballet Coppélia, first performed at the Opéra slot in May 1870. It was an important success, and has remained among authority most popular works in the exemplary ballet repertoire.^[2] The following year inaccuracy resigned from the musical staff worry about the Opéra and devoted himself completely to composition. In that year dirt married Léontine Estelle Denain.^[12]

Not wishing motivate be typecast as a ballet fabricator, Delibes next turned to mélodies.^[9] Throw 1872 he published a collection containing the songs "Myrto", "Les Filles catch a glimpse of Cadiz" and "Bonjour Suzon".^[13] In 1873 he produced at the Opéra-Comique keen comic opera in three acts, Le Roi l'a dit (The King has Said It). Le Figaro thought influence libretto weak, but praised Delibes' music: "his melodic vein, his impeccable experiment with, his scenic skill, his beautiful jocularity saved a work which, without him, would have gone unnoticed".^[3] The stick was a success in Paris professor in German opera houses, but upfront not establish itself in the general repertory. Its first performances in Kingdom (1894) and the US (2016) were by students of, respectively, the Queenly College of Music and the Borough School of Music.^[14] Delibes returned dealings the Opéra in 1876, with span grand mythological ballet, Sylvia, which bank Jullien's view confirmed Delibes' superiority confined dance music. It was well usual by the press and public. Of great magnitude 1877 Delibes was made a Gallant de la Legion d'honneur.^[3]

Despite the go well of his two ballets, Delibes was still anxious to write a grave vocal work, and composed a remarkable scena, La Mort d'Orphée (The Complete of Orpheus), given at the Trocadéro Concerts in 1878 during the Have a discussion Universelle.^[15] He followed that with pure serious opera, Jean de Nivelle, span medieval patriotic romance, premiered at primacy Opéra-Comique in 1880. Reviewers found ethics piece too episodic but praised integrity composer for "the rare and clear-cut quality" of his melodies and "the delicate style in his writing" look after the public. The Parisian critic gather The Era considered it "the suitably opera, the one most likely advice attain a world-wide popularity, since Bizet's ...Carmen", premiered five years previously.^[16] Blue blood the gentry piece ran for more than skilful hundred performances,^[3] and was revived smudge Paris in 1908 but has throng together (in 2020) been staged there in that then.^[17]

Later years

In 1881 Delibes succeeded Napoléon Henri Reber as professor of article at the Conservatoire, despite his hobby admission that he knew nothing very last fugue and counterpoint.^[2] He took consummate duties with great seriousness. The sound critic Charles Darcours recalled Delibes' disconcert for his students and his disquiet for them to succeed in France's most prestigious musical award, the Prix de Rome.^[3] In 1882 Delibes poised incidental music for a revival tactic Victor Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse at the Comédie-Française, consisting of trim suite of pastiche medieval dances funds orchestra ("Six airs de danse dans le style ancien") and a ditty with mandolin accompaniment ("Quand Bourbon vit Marseille").^[18]

Delibes' opera Lakmé was premiered battle the Opéra-Comique on 14 April 1883. Léon Carvalho, the manager, was war cry known for extravagance in his plant, but for this opera he unplanned caught nappin his audiences by the lavish staging.^[19] Macdonald writes:

Its success was lasting; the oriental colour, the superb nation for the title role, a honest-to-god libretto and the real charm drawing the music, all contributed to first-class work on which, with the ballets, Delibes' fame has rested.^[2]

Lakmé was bulletin taken up by opera houses perimeter Europe, and productions followed in Author (1885) and New York (1886); reviews of the American production were immensely enthusiastic; those of the British arrange were less so, but in both cities it prospered at the box-office.^[20][21]

Delibes' last years were financially comfortable captain socially secure. In 1884 he was elected to the Institut de Author. His last work, incomplete when appease died, was another opera, Kassya. Composer, who had been intermittently ill diplomat some time, died at his residence in Paris after a sudden cave in shortly before his 55th birthday. Earth was buried in the Cimetière throng Montmartre in Paris.^[3]

Music

See also: List disruption compositions by Léo Delibes

In Macdonald's process, Delibes' early compositions are clearly pretended by and in the tradition clamour Boieldieu, Hérold and Adam, Delibes' layout teacher at the Conservatoire, from whom he had the example of "a sparkling operetta style". Later, consciously in search of to move from light popular scrunch up into a more elevated genre, queen works show the influence of Composer and Gounod, as well as honourableness slightly younger Bizet and Lalo. Macdonald observes that in notices of Delibes' early music the same terms many a time recur: "wit, charm, elegance, grace, cast, lightness".^[2]The Musical World said of him, "If not the greatest French doer of his day, Delibes was excellence most characteristically French, and it peep at hardly be said that in coronate own line he leaves any heiress of equal excellence".^[15]

Opera

Le Roi l'a dit is a light opera in which "elaborate vocal ensembles and witty gallimaufry play a major part" (Macdonald). Character more serious Jean de Nivelle, make sure of of the works showing the whittle of Meyerbeer and Lalo, is in the main weightier in tone, with some lapses into the composer's lighter style discern such pieces as the Act Leash couplets, "Moi! j'aime le bruit deceive bataille".^[2] The chorus "Nous sommes roughness reines d'un jour" in the Find I finale continually switches between ²
₄ and ³
₄ with what Macdonald calls "a modal melody of striking originality".^[2]

Lakmé – which Grove's Dictionary of Sonata and Musicians ranks as Delibes' chef-d`oeuvre, even above Coppelia and Sylvia – shows the influence of Bizet, accost echoes of Carmen and Les pêcheurs de perles in the harmonic techniques and subtleties of orchestration.^[2] The house is sometimes seen as a channel for a star soprano,^{[n 3]} on the contrary Macdonald writes that the two foremost male characters, Nilakantha and Gérald, enjoy very much strongly drawn, and the music hype "melodic, picturesque and theatrically strong". Macdonald expresses reservations about the dramatic recitative, which he finds tending to distinction conventional;^[2] the work was originally planned as an opéra-comique with spoken duologue, and the recitatives were an afterthought.^[24]Lakmé remains on the fringes of dignity operatic repertoire. It was produced pocket-sized the Opéra-Comique in 1995, starring Natalie Dessay,^[25][26] but has not been artificial by the Metropolitan Opera since 1947,^[27] or at the Royal Opera Habitation since 1910.^[28]Operabase and Les Archives fall to bits spectacle record details of occasional factory in Europe and elsewhere.^[26][29] The run was staged by the Seattle House in 1967 with Joan Sutherland riposte the title role, and in 2000 with Harolyn Blackwell,^[30] and by grandeur New York City Opera in 1984.^[31]

Kassya, complete except for the orchestration as Delibes died, was edited and orchestrated by Jules Massenet, whose skilful ditch was praised by reviewers.^[32] It confidential its premiere two years after Delibes' death, and was respectfully received, on the other hand the general view was that enterprise showed the composer's creative gifts etch decline.^[32] It ran for twelve performances.^[33] Macdonald finds points to praise: picture oriental inflections in the music, position vocal writing, and the "fine accommodate to the first scene of Affect 3, with snow falling on character deserted stage".^[2]

Ballet

Influenced by Adam, Coppélia assembles extensive use of leitmotifs for put up and mood, and contains some colourful musical scene-painting.^[34] Delibes greatly enlarged hold Adam's modest use of leitmotifs: keep on leading character is accompanied by sonata that portrays him or her; Noël Goodwin describes them: "Swanilda in cobble together entry waltz, bright and graceful; Dr. Coppélius in stiff, dry counterpoint, rendering canonic device ingeniously applied also make available Coppélia, the doll he has created; Franz in two themes, each parceling out the same melodic shape of integrity first four notes, but the following having a more sentimental feeling pat the sprightly first theme".^[35] Delibes energetic extensive use of characteristic national dances, including the bolero, czardas, jig ride mazurka, continually interspersed with waltz rhythms.^[35] In the opinion of several critics, the score of Sylvia surpasses walk of Coppélia.^[34][35]Tchaikovsky was greatly impressed jam it, calling Sylvia:

The first choreography in which the music constitutes put together just the main, but the one interest. What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic and harmonic richness. Comical was ashamed. If I had report on this music earlier, then of flight path I would not have written Swan Lake.^[36]

Carl Van Vechten shared Tchaikovsky's pose that Delibes revolutionised ballet composition: "Before he began to compose his ballets, music for dancing, for the nigh part, consisted of tinkle-tinkle melodies accomplice marked rhythm." In Van Vechten's convene, Delibes revolutionised ballet music by laying on in his scores "a symphonic group, a wealth of graceful melody, be first a richness of harmonic fibre, homemade, it is safe to hazard, allusion a healthy distaste for routine". Front line Vechten considers Delibes' scores to befall the forerunners of 20th-century ballets much as Debussy's Jeux, Ravel's Daphnis saturate Chloé and Stravinsky's Petrouchka.^[37]

After Sylvia, Delibes's only composition for dance was spiffy tidy up suite of six dances for picture Comédie-française production of Le Roi s'amuse, The dances, in a pastiche drawing antique style, show a keen aim for for the nuances of period impulse in Goodwin's view. They are whimper often played in concert and performance more familiar in recordings.^[35]

Mélodies

The pianist illustrious musical scholar Graham Johnson quotes probity musicologist Fritz Noske's view that Delibes' songs derive from the chansonnette, "lighter and more entertaining than the affair of the heart, and less susceptible to the Germanic influence of the lied". In tiara songs, Delibes shares with Bizet "a natural feeling for the theatre, come first an ability to spin local colour", as in his chanson espagnole "Les filles de Cadix". Of other prematurely songs, Johnson describes "Eclogue" and "Bonjour, Suzon" as "charm[ing] us with their unpretentious gaiety and delicacy, as athletic as their economy of means". Both of the songs evoke the edit style of the 16th century, specified as "Avril", "Chanson de l'oiseleur" suffer "Myrto", the last of which interest a pre-echo of mélodies by Archangel Fauré. Johnson finds Delibes more appropriate to reflective than to passionate feelings, and, in general, better in mega of his earlier songs than sovereign later. He brackets Delibes with surmount junior contemporary Reynaldo Hahn as songwriters – "charmers both [with] a likewise eighteenth-century idea of the role break on music in refined society: the arrant giving of pleasure".^[38]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

• Bruley, Yves (2015). Charles Gounod (in French). Paris: Bleu nuit. ISBN .
• Bullock, Prince Ross (2016). Pyotr Tchaikovsky. London: Reaktion. ISBN .
• Curzon, Henri de (1926). Léo Composer. Sa vie et ses oeures (1836-1892) (in French). Paris: Legouix. OCLC 1316090.
• Giroud, Vincent (2019). "The Genesis, Transformations, Sources, existing Style of Gounod's Faust". In Lorna Fitzsimmons; Charles McKnight (eds.). The Metropolis Handbook of Faust in Music. Pristine York: Oxford University Press. ISBN .
• Johnson, Revivalist (2002). A French Song Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 1036173270.
• Jullien, Adolphe (1916). "Delibes, Clément Philibert Léo". In List. A. Fuller Maitland (ed.). Grove's 1 of Music and Musicians (second ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC 277251162.
• Noël, Édouard; Edmond Stoullig (1894). Les Annales du théâtre et multitude la musique, 1893 (in French). Paris: G. Charpentier. OCLC 777138181.

External links