French Opera - The Late 19th Century

The Late 19th Century

Berlioz was not the only one discontented with operatic life in Paris. In the 1850s, two new theatres attempted to break the monopoly of the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique on the performance of musical drama in the capital. The Théâtre Lyrique ran from 1851 to 1870. It was here in 1863 that Berlioz saw the only part of Les Troyens to be performed in his lifetime. But the Lyrique also staged the premieres of works by a rising new generation of French opera composers, led by Charles Gounod and Georges Bizet. Though not as innovative as Berlioz, these composers were receptive to new musical influences. They also liked writing operas on literary themes. Gounod's Faust (1859), based on the drama by Goethe, became an enormous worldwide success. Gounod followed it with Mireille (1864), based on the Provençal epic by Frédéric Mistral, and the Shakespeare-inspired Roméo et Juliette (1867). Bizet offered the Théâtre Lyrique Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth, but his biggest triumph was written for the Opéra-Comique. Carmen (1875) is now perhaps the most famous of all French operas. Early critics and audiences, however, were shocked by its unconventional blend of romantic passion and realism.

Another figure unhappy with the Parisian operatic scene in the mid-nineteenth century was Jacques Offenbach. He found that contemporary French opéra-comiques no longer offered any room for comedy. His little theatre the Bouffes-Parisiens, established in 1855, put on short one-act pieces full of farce and satire. In 1858, Offenbach tried something more ambitious. Orphée aux enfers ("Orpheus in the Underworld") was the first work in a new genre: operetta. Orphée was both a parody of highflown Classical tragedy and a satire on contemporary society. Its incredible popularity prompted Offenbach to follow up with more operettas such as La belle Hélène (1864) and La vie parisienne (1866) as well as the more serious Les contes d'Hoffmann (1881).

Opera flourished in late nineteenth-century Paris and many works of the period went on to gain international renown. These include Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868) by Ambroise Thomas; Samson et Dalila (1877, in the Opéra 's new home, the Palais Garnier) by Camille Saint-Saëns; Lakmé (1883) by Léo Delibes; and Le roi d'Ys (1888) by Édouard Lalo. The most consistently successful composer of the era was Jules Massenet, who produced twenty-five operas in his characteristically suave and elegant style, including several for the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. His tragic romances Manon (1884) and Werther (1892) have weathered changes in musical fashion and are still widely performed today.