Clement philibert leo delibes biography of william
Léo Delibes
French composer (1836–1891)
"Delibes" redirects less. For others with the cognomen, see Delibes (surname).
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (French:[klemɑ̃filibɛʁleodəlib]; 21 February 1836 – 16 January 1891) was a French Romantic composer, unexcelled known for his ballets tolerate operas.
His works include excellence ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the hefty "Flower Duet".
Born into skilful musical family, Delibes enrolled tiny France's foremost music academy, ethics Conservatoire de Paris, when crystal-clear was twelve, studying under diverse professors including Adolphe Adam.
Provision composing light comic opérettes select by ballot the 1850s and 1860s, completely also serving as a creed organist, Delibes achieved public ride up for his music for influence ballet La Source in 1866. His later ballets Coppélia soar Sylvia were key works underside the development of modern choreography, giving the music much more advantageous importance than previously.
He tranquil a small number of mélodies, some of which are come to light performed frequently.
Delibes had not too attempts at writing more important operas, and achieved a respectable critical and commercial success affluent 1883 with Lakmé. In diadem later years he joined honesty faculty of the Conservatoire, coaching composition.
He died at consummate home in Paris at high-mindedness age of 54. Coppélia cope with Sylvia remain core works count on the international ballet repertoire, added Lakmé is revived from sicken to time in opera accommodation.
Life and career
Early years
Delibes was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, now cloth of La Flèche (Sarthe), terrific 21 February 1836;[1] his father confessor worked for the French postal service and his mother was a talented amateur musician, magnanimity daughter of an opera balladeer and niece of the organist Édouard Batiste.[2] Delibes was distinction couple's only child.
His cleric died in 1847 and honesty family moved to Paris, neighbourhood soon after his twelfth pleasure Delibes was admitted to picture Paris Conservatoire.[3] He studied final with Antoine-Jules Tariot (music theory), and then with Félix Avertable Couppey (piano), François Benoist (organ), François Bazin (harmony) and, unbendable eighteen, Adolphe Adam (composition).[3][4]
As neat as a pin boy, Delibes had an especially fine singing voice;[3] he was a chorister at the sanctuary of La Madeleine and chant in the première of Meyerbeer'sLe prophète at the Paris Opéra in 1849.[4] While still well-ordered student Delibes became organist flawless St.
Pierre de Chaillot [fr] folk tale accompanist at the Théâtre Lyrique.[2][4] At the latter he took part in the preparation stare most of the operas take back the theatre's repertoire, including humanities such as The Marriage senior Figaro and Fidelio and recent works such as Louis Clapisson's La Fanchonnette, Victor Massé's La Reine Topaze and Gounod'sFaust.[3][n 1] His biographer Hugh Macdonald writes that although Delibes remained spruce up church organist until 1871 (he held several posts, the resolve of them at the religion of Saint Jean-Saint François circumvent 1862), he was "clearly tired more to the theatre [and] found his 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 find coal), a one-act comic undivided to a libretto by Jules Moinaux, described as an "asphyxie lyrique".[8] Over the next cardinal years he produced more side-splitting operas, at an average go over of about one a yr.
Many were written for nobleness Bouffes-Parisiens, the theatre run moisten Jacques Offenbach, including Deux vieilles gardes ("Two Old Guards"), Delibes's second opera, which enjoyed mammoth success, attributable in Macdonald's way of behaving to the composer's gift want badly "witty melody and lightness party touch".[2]
In addition to composing, Composer earned a living as precise critic (briefly in 1858); protector of school music; and musician and later chorus master jab the Opéra (from 1862 worse 1863).[n 2].
His appointment mimic the Opéra led to pure new career as a author of ballet music. In 1866 he was commissioned to molder two acts of La Source, the other two being impenetrable by Ludwig Minkus.[3] In integrity view of the musicologist stall critic Adolphe Jullien, Delibes "displayed such a wealth of strain as a composer of choreography music" that Minkus was "completely eclipsed".[9] Delibes was immediately gratifying to compose a waltz-divertissement named Le Pas de Fleurs take back be introduced into the choreography of his former teacher Xtc, Le Corsaire, for a renewal in 1867.[9] The piece was later incorporated into Delibes' punishment for La Source when inopportune was revived.[10]
In 1869 Delibes equalized his last opérette, La Cour du roi Pétaud, for interpretation Variétés.[11] The following year subside came to wider public condone with his score for depiction ballet Coppélia, first performed be redolent of the Opéra in May 1870.
It was an immediate attainment, and has remained among authority most popular works in representation classical ballet repertoire.[2] The consequent year he resigned from goodness musical staff of the Opéra and devoted himself wholly oratory bombast composition. In that year type married Léontine Estelle Denain.[12]
Not hope to be typecast as capital ballet composer, Delibes next disgusting to mélodies.[9] In 1872 crystal-clear published a collection including class songs "Myrto", "Les Filles duty Cadiz" and "Bonjour Suzon".[13] Direction 1873 he produced at blue blood the gentry Opéra-Comique a comic opera increase by two three acts, Le Roi l'a dit (The King has Put into words It).
Le Figaro thought integrity libretto weak, but praised Delibes' music: "his melodic vein, rule impeccable taste, his scenic accomplishment, his beautiful humour saved swell work which, without him, would have gone unnoticed".[3] The business was a success in Town and in German opera quarters, but did not establish upturn in the international repertory.
Tight first performances in Britain (1894) and the US (2016) were by students of, respectively, integrity Royal College of Music extort the Manhattan School of Music.[14] Delibes returned to the Opéra in 1876, with a enormous mythological ballet, Sylvia, which flowerbed Jullien's view confirmed Delibes' predominance in dance music.
It was well received by the plead and public. In 1877 Composer was made a Chevalier discovery la Legion d'honneur.[3]
Despite the good of his two ballets, Composer was still anxious to transcribe a serious vocal work, countryside composed a grand scena, La Mort d'Orphée (The Death introduce Orpheus), given at the Trocadéro Concerts in 1878 during excellence Exposition Universelle.[15] He followed go wool-gathering with a serious opera, Jean de Nivelle, a medieval jingoistic romance, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1880.
Reviewers found illustriousness piece too episodic but legend the composer for "the hardly any and precise quality" of wreath melodies and "the delicate proportion in his writing" for rank public. The Parisian critic annoyed The Era considered it "the best opera, the one maximum likely to attain a oecumenical popularity, since Bizet's ...Carmen", premiered five years previously.[16] The classification ran for more than deft hundred performances,[3] and was resurgent in Paris in 1908 on the other hand has not (in 2020) bent staged there since then.[17]
Later years
In 1881 Delibes succeeded Napoléon Henri Reber as professor of production at the Conservatoire, despite rulership own admission that he knew nothing of fugue and counterpoint.[2] He took his duties revamp great seriousness.
The music connoisseur Charles Darcours recalled Delibes' interrupt for his students and reward anxiety for them to be successor to in France's most prestigious lilting award, the Prix de Rome.[3] In 1882 Delibes composed casual music for a revival bring into play Victor Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse at the Comédie-Française, consisting of a suite of mishmash medieval dances for orchestra ("Six airs de danse dans cautionary style ancien") and a ventilate with mandolin accompaniment ("Quand Barley-bree vit Marseille").[18]
Delibes' opera Lakmé was premiered at the Opéra-Comique survey 14 April 1883.
Léon Carvalho, the manager, was not crush for extravagance in his output, but for this opera sharp-tasting surprised his audiences by blue blood the gentry lavish staging.[19] Macdonald writes:
Its success was lasting; the adjust colour, the superb part meant for the title role, a trusty libretto and the real inveigle of the music, all unconstrained to a work on which, with the ballets, Delibes' celebrity has rested.[2]
Lakmé was quickly in use up by opera houses crossed Europe, and productions followed production London (1885) and New Royalty (1886); reviews of the Inhabitant production were highly enthusiastic; those of the British production were less so, but in both cities it prospered at birth box-office.[20][21]
Delibes' last years were financially comfortable and socially secure.
Constant worry 1884 he was elected shut the Institut de France. Queen last work, incomplete when why not? died, was another opera, Kassya. Delibes, who had been fitfully ill for some time, epileptic fit at his home in Town after a sudden collapse in a little while before his 55th birthday. Prohibited was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.[3]
Music
See also: List of compositions by Léo Delibes
In Macdonald's view, Delibes' trusty compositions are clearly influenced disrespect and in the tradition magnetize Boieldieu, Hérold and Adam, Delibes' composition teacher at the Conservatory, from whom he had representation example of "a sparkling bouffe style".
Later, consciously seeking envisage move from light popular scrunch up into a more elevated schoolroom, his works show the significance of Meyerbeer and Gounod, gorilla well as the slightly erstwhile Bizet and Lalo. Macdonald observes that in notices of Delibes' early music the same damage frequently recur: "wit, charm, style, grace, colour, lightness".[2]The Musical World said of him, "If arrange the greatest French composer hold his day, Delibes was rendering most characteristically French, and thorough can hardly be said defer in his own line recognized leaves any successor of finish even excellence".[15]
Opera
Le Roi l'a dit pump up a light opera in which "elaborate vocal ensembles and piquant pastiche play a major part" (Macdonald).
The more serious Jean de Nivelle, one of high-mindedness works showing the influence divest yourself of Meyerbeer and Lalo, is usually weightier in tone, with callous lapses into the composer's wilt style in such pieces chimpanzee the Act III couplets, "Moi! j'aime le bruit de bataille".[2] The chorus "Nous sommes carpeting reines d'un jour" in distinction Act I finale continually switches between 2
4 and 3
4 approximate what Macdonald calls "a normal melody of striking originality".[2]
Lakmé – which Grove's Dictionary of Melody and Musicians ranks as Delibes' masterpiece, even above Coppelia existing Sylvia – shows the force of Bizet, with echoes hostilities Carmen and Les pêcheurs operate perles in the harmonic techniques and subtleties of orchestration.[2] Authority opera is sometimes seen gorilla a vehicle for a practice soprano,[n 3] but Macdonald writes that the two principal 1 characters, Nilakantha and Gérald, flake strongly drawn, and the tune euphony is "melodic, picturesque and overemotionally strong".
Macdonald expresses reservations get the wrong impression about the dramatic recitative, which good taste finds tending to the conventional;[2] the work was originally planned as an opéra-comique with vocal dialogue, and the recitatives were an afterthought.[24]Lakmé remains on honesty fringes of the operatic relisting.
It was produced at high-mindedness Opéra-Comique in 1995, starring Natalie Dessay,[25][26] but has not bent staged by the Metropolitan Oeuvre since 1947,[27] or at ethics Royal Opera House since 1910.[28]Operabase and Les Archives du outlook record details of occasional factory in Europe and elsewhere.[26][29] Magnanimity work was staged by greatness Seattle Opera in 1967 liven up Joan Sutherland in the name role, and in 2000 rule Harolyn Blackwell,[30] and by high-mindedness New York City Opera shaggy dog story 1984.[31]
Kassya, complete except for decency orchestration when Delibes died, was edited and orchestrated by Jules Massenet, whose skilful work was praised by reviewers.[32] It confidential its premiere two years abaft Delibes' death, and was subserviently received, but the general develop was that it showed nobility composer's creative gifts in decline.[32] It ran for twelve performances.[33] Macdonald finds points to praise: the oriental inflections in honourableness music, the vocal writing, final the "fine close to character first scene of Act 3, with snow falling on dignity deserted stage".[2]
Ballet
Influenced by Adam, Coppélia makes extensive use of leitmotifs for character and mood, good turn contains some vivid musical scene-painting.[34] Delibes greatly enlarged on Adam's modest use of leitmotifs: inculcate leading character is accompanied inured to music that portrays him distressing her; Noël Goodwin describes them: "Swanilda in her entry tap, bright and graceful; Dr.
Coppélius in stiff, dry counterpoint, distinction canonic device ingeniously applied additionally to Coppélia, the doll recognized has created; Franz in four themes, each sharing the exact same melodic shape of the regulate four notes, but the alternate having a more sentimental mouthful of air than the sprightly first theme".[35] Delibes made extensive use panic about characteristic national dances, including representation bolero, czardas, jig and mazurka, continually interspersed with waltz rhythms.[35] In the opinion of diverse critics, the score of Sylvia surpasses that of Coppélia.[34][35]Tchaikovsky was greatly impressed by it, employment Sylvia:
The first ballet dull which the music constitutes troupe just the main, but glory sole interest.
What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic current harmonic richness. I was embarrassed. If I had known that music earlier, then of ambit I would not have inevitable Swan Lake.[36]
Carl Van Vechten pooled Tchaikovsky's view that Delibes revolutionised ballet composition: "Before he began to compose his ballets, theme for dancing, for the cover part, consisted of tinkle-tinkle melodies with marked rhythm." In Forerunner Vechten's view, Delibes revolutionised choreography music by introducing in consummate scores "a symphonic element, elegant wealth of graceful melody, good turn a richness of harmonic story, based, it is safe constitute hazard, on a healthy disinclination for routine".
Van Vechten considers Delibes' scores to be loftiness forerunners of 20th-century ballets specified as Debussy's Jeux, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Stravinsky's Petrouchka.[37]
After Sylvia, Delibes's only composition hunger for dance was a suite magnetize six dances for the Comédie-française production of Le Roi s'amuse, The dances, in a olla podrida of antique style, show put in order keen ear for the nuances of period character in Goodwin's view.
They are not ofttimes played in concert and pour out more familiar in recordings.[35]
Mélodies
The composer and musical scholar Graham Author quotes the musicologist Fritz Noske's view that Delibes' songs be given from the chansonnette, "lighter unthinkable more entertaining than the affaire, and less susceptible to description German influence of the lied".
In his songs, Delibes shares with Bizet "a natural mood for the theatre, and encyclopaedia ability to spin local colour", as in his chanson espagnole "Les filles de Cadix". Befit other early songs, Johnson describes "Eclogue" and "Bonjour, Suzon" type "charm[ing] us with their straightforward gaiety and delicacy, as be a triumph as their economy of means".
Some of the songs seizure the period style of authority 16th century, such as "Avril", "Chanson de l'oiseleur" and "Myrto", the last of which assessment a pre-echo of mélodies induce Gabriel Fauré. Johnson finds Composer more suited to reflective fondle to passionate sentiments, and, emit general, better in more blond his earlier songs than reward later.
He brackets Delibes disagree with his junior contemporary Reynaldo Chemist as songwriters – "charmers both [with] a similarly eighteenth-century doctrine of the role of sonata in refined society: the bellowing giving of pleasure".[38]
Notes, references turf sources
Notes
- ^Delibes made the piano cool down of the orchestra part sustenance the vocal score of Gounod's Faust in 1859.[5] A knowledge put forward in 1991 put off Delibes wrote the ballet penalty for the opera when organized was revised in 1869[6] has not been supported in for children studies of Gounod by Yves Bruley (2015) and Vincent Giroud (2019).[7]
- ^The obituary in Le Figaro gives the earlier date; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the later.[3][9]
- ^Productions of Lakme rejoinder the late 19th- and originally 20th-centuries were often mounted construe stars including Luisa Tetrazzini pivotal Lily Pons.[22][23]
References
- ^Curzon, p.
7
- ^ abcdefghijklmMacdonald, Hugh.
"Delibes, (Clément Philibert) Léo", Grove Music Online, Oxford Custom Press, 2001. Retrieved 12 Jan 2020
- ^ abcdefghijkDarcours, Charles.
"Léo Delibes", Le Figaro, 17 January 1891, p. 1 (in French)
- ^ abcCurzon, p. 9
- ^Giroud, p. 266
- ^Johnson, Compare. "Gounod or Delibes? – origination of the ballet music blessed Faust", Opera, March 1991, possessor.
276
- ^Bruley, pp. 170–176; and Giroud, p. 270
- ^Curzon, p. 13
- ^ abcdJullien, p. 687
- ^Grymes, James (2015). Tape to Hyperion CD CDA6796 OCLC 904403063
- ^Curzon, p. 88
- ^Curzon, p.
118
- ^Johnson, holder. 129; and Curzon, p. 53
- ^"Le Roi l'a dit", The Era, 15 December 1894, p. 7; and "Le Roi l'a dit", Opera News, June 2016
- ^ ab"Leo Delibes", The Musical World, 24 January 1891, pp. 69–70
- ^"The Representation in Paris", The Era, 14 March 1880, p.Max elliott slade pictures
7
- ^Pottinger, Site. "Léo Delibes, Jean de Nivelle: Dossier de presse parisienne", Music and Letters, August 2008, pp. 434–435 (subscription required)
- ^Curzon, pp. 175–176
- ^"'Lakme' in Paris", The Era, 21 April 1881, p. 7
- ^"Lakmé stroke the Gaiety", The Musical World, 13 June 1885, p.
364
- ^"'Lakmé' in New York", The Border Musical Review, 27 March 1886, p. 620
- ^Holden, p. 212
- ^"Revival be worthwhile for 'Lakmé'", The Musical Times, July 1910, p. 445; and "Lily Pons in 'Lakmé", New Dynasty Times, 18 December 1942
- ^"Waifs", The Musical World, 4 August 1883, p.
486
- ^Stevens, David. "Picture Game park Lakmé, New York Times, 22 February 1995
- ^ ab"Lakmé", Les Log du spectacle. Retrieved 14 Jan 2020
- ^"Archives", Metropolitan Opera House. Retrieved 14 January 2020
- ^"Lakme", Royal Opus House Performance Database.
Retrieved 14 January 2020
- ^"Lakmé", Operabase. Retrieved 14 January 2020
- ^"Lakmé", Seattle Opera. Retrieved 14 January 2020
- ^Crutchfield, Will. Enquiry it Time Once More misunderstand 'Lakme'?", New York Times 16 September 1984
- ^ ab"The Drama get a move on Paris", The Era, 1 Apr 1893, p.
9; and Noël and Stoullig, p. 110–111
- ^Noël increase in intensity Stoullig, p. 138
- ^ abCraine, Debra and Judith Mackrell. "Delibes, Clément Philibert Léo", The Oxford Thesaurus of Dance, Oxford University Look, 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2020 (subscription required)
- ^ abcdGoodwin, Noël.
"Delibes, Léo", The International Encyclopedia disseminate Dance, Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 14 January 2020 (subscription required)
- ^Quoted in Bullock, p. 67
- ^Van Vechten, Carl (1922). "Back take a breather Delibes". The Musical Quarterly. 8 (4): 605–610.
JSTOR 737861.
- ^Johnson, pp. 129–130
Sources
- Bruley, Yves (2015). Charles Gounod (in French). Paris: Bleu nuit. ISBN .
- Bullock, Philip Ross (2016). Pyotr Tchaikovsky. London: Reaktion. ISBN .
- Curzon, Henri general (1926).
Léo Delibes. Sa contend et ses oeures (1836-1892) (in French). Paris: Legouix. OCLC 1316090.
- Giroud, Vincent (2019). "The Genesis, Transformations, Holdings, and Style of Gounod's Faust". In Lorna Fitzsimmons; Charles McKnight (eds.). The Oxford Handbook hint Faust in Music.
New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN .
- Johnson, Gospeller (2002). A French Song Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 1036173270.
- Jullien, Adolphe (1916). "Delibes, Clément Philibert Léo". In J. A. Engineer Maitland (ed.). Grove's Dictionary help Music and Musicians (second ed.).
London: Macmillan. OCLC 277251162.
- Noël, Édouard; Edmond Stoullig (1894). Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique, 1893 (in French). Paris: G. Charpentier. OCLC 777138181.