Project Category: Composer

Massenet was a prolific, meticulous composer who wrote 30 or so operas, numerous oratorios and around 200 songs. Born in 1842, he entered the Paris Conservatoire aged just 11, going on to study with the composer Ambroise Thomas. In 1862, aged 20, he won the coveted Prix de Rome, spending three years in Italy, where he met Liszt. His first full-length opera came in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, with Don César de Bazan, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1872, though his first real success came with the oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (1873), the title role sung by Pauline Viardot, sister of Maria Malibran. His first successful opera came in 1877 with Le Roi de Lahore, followed by Hérodiade (1881), based on the story of Salome. Three years later came the melodious tragedy Manon in 1884, perhaps his most enduring success, which picked up on Wagner in his use of leitmotivs and weightier brass. By this point, Massenet was France’s most popular opera composer, his light, lyrical style and remarkable gift for melody appealing to the French bourgeoisie, while never challenging them too much. A further three operas – Le Cid, Le Mage and Esclarmonde – didn’t match the success of Manon, but then came Werther in 1892, his masterpiece based on Goethe’s novel on the destructive power of obsessive love. Two years later he followed up with Thaïs, one of his most performed operas, its difficult title role written for the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson. The same year the one-act Le Portrait de Manon (available on Opera Rara, ORC47), was premiered at the Opéra-Comique, a work peppered with familiar quotations from Manon, written 10 years earlier. Massenet’s musical style was eclipsed by the success of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, though in his last decade his work found a ready stage in Monte Carlo, far from the mainstream of French opera. His last success was Don Quichotte, premiered in 1910, two years before his death.

Italian composer and librettist Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919) is best known today for his one-act verismo masterpiece Pagliacci, for which he also wrote the libretto.

Born in Naples to a well-to-do family – his father was a magistrate – he began studying at the conservatory there in 1866. In the late 1870s he wrote both music and libretto for his first opera Chatterton (first performed 1896). Around that time he moved to Egypt, but on the outbreak of the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882 he moved to Marseilles and then to Paris, where he worked as a pianist in café-concerts. He found some success with the symphonic poem La Nuit de mai, and was also commissioned by Ricordi to write a planned trilogy Crepusculum (of which only the first part, I Medici, was completed). After the success of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana he was inspired to write Pagliacci, which was a triumph on its 1892 premiere and led to stagings of Chatterton and I Medici. His La bohème in 1897 was overshadowed by the success of Puccini’s version the previous year. His last major success was Zazà in 1900. Around this time he was increasingly popular in Germany, leading to 1904’s Der Roland von Berlin. He was an early supporter of recording, and that year composed the song Mattinata for Enrico Caruso and the G&T Company. Towards the end of his life he turned increasingly towards operetta. His later operas included Goffredo Mameli (1916) and the incomplete Edipo re (1920).

Pagliacci was paired with Mascagni’s Cavallaria rusticana soon after its premiere and together they are probably the most enduringly popular operas of the verismo movement.

Charles Gounod is best known for his operas Faust and Romeo et Juliette and for his Ave Maria (1859). Except for concertos, he composed music in the major genres, but with varying success in the instrumental realm. Gounod was more at home in the vocal arena, particularly in opera and sacred music. Though his reputation began to fade even before he died, he is still generally regarded as a major figure in nineteenth century French music. Stylistically, he was a conservative whose influence nevertheless extended to Bizet, Saint-Saens, and Massenet. His works are tuneful, his vocal writing imaginative and orchestral scoring masterly.

He was born on 17 June 1818. His mother was a pianist who served as the young boy’s first teacher. While still in his youth she arranged for him to receive composition lessons from Anton Reicha. After Reicha’s death, Gounod began studies at the Paris Conservatory, where he won a Grand Prix in 1839 for his Cantata Fernand.

After further composition studies in Rome, where he focused on sixteenth century church music, particularly the works of Palestrina, he became deeply interested in religion and by 1845 was contemplating the priesthood. It was the 1859 opera Faust that after a slow start became his calling card. Mireille (1864) and especially Romeo et Juliette (1867) added to his reputation, not only in France but throughout Europe.

From 1870-1875 Gounod lived in England owing to the exigencies of the Franco-Prussian War. In his years there and in the period following his return to France, Gounod wrote much music, especially religious music, but never again attained the kind of success he experienced in the 1850s and ’60s. He died in St. Cloud on 18 October 1893.

Born in 1801 in Catania, Sicily, to a family already steeped in music; his father and grandfather were both career musicians, Bellini began composing before receiving any formal music education.

He entered the Royal College of Music of San Sebastiano, now the Naples Conservatory, in 1819 and became a primo maestrino in 1824. The conservatory’s students performed Bellini’s first opera, Adelson e Salvini and after the initial performance in February 1825 it was performed repeatedly throughout the year. This particular work was never performed outside of the conservatory, but served as a source of material for at least five other operas Bellini composed. Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera offered Bellini his first commission for an opera, which resulted in Bianca e Fernando (1826). This was followed by a second from Barbaja, Il pirata (1827), and led to a long-term collaboration between Bellini and librettist Felice Romani. The premiere of Il pirata on 27 October 1827, at La Scala, Milan, established Bellini as an internationally acclaimed opera composer.

His opera Zaira (1829), written with Romani for the inauguration of the Teatro Ducale at Parma, was hurriedly completed; the opera was a notable failure and was never produced again. He rebounded, though, with I Capuleti e i Montecchi (based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) in 1830.

1831 proved most successful for Bellini as two of his most famous operas, La sonnambula and Norma, were produced. Although Norma was unenthusiastically received, many critics and Bellini himself believed it to be his finest work. Its aria “Casta diva” is one of the evergreens of the classical vocal repertory. These two operas were followed by a less successful composition, Beatrice di Tenda. This opera was premiered at La Fenice, Venice, on March 16, 1833, a month later than scheduled; the failure led to the falling out of Bellini and Romani.

Bellini spent the summer of 1833 in London directing performances of his operas. He then moved to Paris, where he composed and produced his last opera, I puritani, which premiered on January 24, 1835. Unlike Bellini’s previous two operas, I puritani was enthusiastically received. At the height of his career and only 33 years old, Bellini died of a chronic intestinal ailment on 23 September 1835.