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• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

century seemed to adore. Lumps in the throat are legion as we see her preparing for deportation to the colonies, musically heightened by the device of recalling earlier times. Massenet intensifies the moment by having Manon lose her singing voice: she speaks the words above highly emotional music from the orchestra. Composed: 1882–83; rev. 1884 Premiered: 1884, Paris Libretto ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

that began with the rehearsal of the same Christmas carol with which the opera ends: children’s voices are heard as he dies. This is crisis at Christmas. By now, Massenet had learnt to manipulate all the stock-in-trades to maximum effect, and was particularly brilliant at the heart-rending aria. Composed: 1885–87 Premiered: 1892, Vienna Libretto by Edouard Blau, ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Jool Mas-na’) 1842–1912 French composer Shortly after his first operatic success with Le roi de Lahore (‘The King of Lahore’, 1877) Massenet became professor at the Paris Conservatoire; he was subsequently elected to the French Academy instead of his rival Saint-Saëns. Massenet’s 28 operas include several enduring masterpieces: Manon (1884) remains one of the most popular French Romantic operas, while Werther ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1842–1912, French The son of a businessman, Jules Massenet had a musical mother and was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11. He had a prolific career with varying degrees of success, but above all he became reputed for his orientalist excursions, his brilliant musical projection of the female character, and the ability ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

place at the head of the Italian operatic table. Ricordi worked hard to persuade Puccini of the dangers inherent in setting a story that had already received successful treatment by Massenet, but the young composer was not to be swayed. Puccini’s determination proved well-founded, for the opera received an ecstatic reception after its premiere in the Teatro Regio, ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1697–1763, French Prévost has a place in operatic history quite simply because two major nineteenth-century composers made lasting operas out of his work: Massenet’s Manon and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut both derive from Prévost’s most famous novel, L’histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. Its exploration of the tribulations of a passionate woman made ideal material for operatic ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1965 Romanian soprano She studied in Bucharest and made her operatic debut as Mimì in (La bohème) at the Romanian National Opera in 1990, reprising the role at Covent Garden in 1991 and the Metropolitan Opera (her house debut) in 1993. In addition to Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, she has had notable success in French-language opera, ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

Zola’s ideas confirmed it. Charpentier’s Louise is notable, and there are also works by Gabriel Dupont, Camille Erlanger, Xavier Leroux and Charles-Marie Widor – not to mention Massenet – which display elements of the realist approach. Bruneau himself first set Le rêve, rather an exception to Zola’s usual realism, in 1891, in a version by ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Âr-nest’ Sho-sôn’) 1855–99 French composer After qualifying in law, Chausson studied with Massenet and Franck at the Paris Conservatoire and absorbed Wagnerian style, attending the Bayreuth premiere of Parsifal on his honeymoon. All three influences pervade his highly polished oeuvre in all genres. Best known are his masterly Symphony in B flat (1889), his sparkling concerto for piano, violin ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Zhôrzh En-es’-ko) 1881–1955 Romanian composer A pupil of Jules Massenet (1842–1912) and Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), Enescu became famous as a composer with his two Romanian Rhapsodies, written when he was 20 years old, in a style close to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. His performing career as violinist and conductor was cut short by illness and he was largely forgotten after ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

, and a man whose memory for music rivalled that of Mozart. Born in Romania, Enescu studied in Vienna and Paris, where he sat alongside Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), Jules Massenet (1842–1912) and other celebrated French composers. Working with some of the best musicians of his day, he led an active life on the concert platform. Yehudi Menuhin was among ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

For his third opera he chose The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. This eighteenth-century French novel had already been set by Massenet, whose highly successful Manon was produced in Paris in 1884. Puccini used different scenes for his opera and Manon Lescaut, first performed in Turin in February 1893, ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

violin at the Lille Conservatory and subsequently entered the Paris Conservatoire where he studied both violin and composition. Having begun composition studies with Hector Pessard, he later studied under Massenet, whose advice contributed to Charpentier’s victory in the Prix de Rome in 1887. Part of the prize involved a trip to Rome itself and it was there that he ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1831–97, French Henri Meilhac, the French dramatist and librettist, wrote most of his texts for operas in collaboration with other writers. Meilhac’s most renowned partnership, which began after a chance meeting outside a Paris theatre in 1860, was with Ludovic Halévy. They produced libretti for Bizet, Léo Delibes (1836–91) and most famously for Offenbach. Meilhac ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1850–1925, Polish Jean de Reszke was a Polish tenor whose handsome face and fine physique suited him for romantic roles. He made his debut at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in 1874, not as a tenor, but in the baritone part of Alfonso in Donizetti’s La favorite. He continued to sing baritone roles until he re-trained and ...