André Messager
Encyclopedia
Opéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
s and operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s, among which Véronique
Véronique (operetta)
Véronique is an opéra comique or operetta in three acts composed by André Messager. The French libretto was by Georges Duval and Albert Vanloo...
, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire
Monsieur Beaucaire (operetta)
Monsieur Beaucaire is a romantic opera in three acts, composed by André Messager. The libretto, based on the 1900 novel by Booth Tarkington, is by Frederick Lonsdale, with lyrics by Adrian Ross...
also enjoying international success.
Despite financial obstacles, Messager pursued studies in piano and composition, with teachers including Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
. He became a major figure in the musical life of London as well as Paris, both as a conductor and a composer. Most of his Parisian works were produced in London, where several of them had long runs and numerous revivals, and he wrote two operatic works in English. He was the only French composer to write an original Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
. Towards the end of his career, he composed musical comedies
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
for Sacha Guitry
Sacha Guitry
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
and Yvonne Printemps
Yvonne Printemps
Yvonne Printemps was a French singer and actress.-Biography:Born Yvonne Wigniolle, she made her debut at the age of 12 in a revue at La Cigale in Paris. She was dancing at the Folies Bergère at age 13...
.
As a conductor, Messager held prominent positions in Paris and London, at the head of the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, the Paris Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
, the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
The Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire was a symphony orchestra established in Paris in 1828. It gave its first concert on 9 March 1828 with music by Beethoven, Rossini, Meifreid, Rode and Cherubini....
, and of the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden. Although as a composer he is known chiefly for his light works, as a conductor he presented a wide range of operas, from Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
to Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, and he acquired a reputation as a conductor of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. In Paris he conducted the world premieres of Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
, Massenet's
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
Grisélidis
Grisélidis
Grisélidis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand. It is based on the play by the same authors first performed at the Comédie-Française on 15 May 1891, which is drawn from the medieval tale of 'patient Grissil'...
and Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier, , born in Dieuze, Moselle on 25 June 1860, died Paris, 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.-Life and career:...
's Louise
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
. At Covent Garden, he gave the British premieres of operas by Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Massenet.
Early years
Messager was born at MontluçonMontluçon
Montluçon is a commune in central France. It is the largest commune in the Allier department, although the department's préfecture is located in the smaller town of Moulins. Its inhabitants are known as Montluçonnais...
in central France, the son of Paul-Philippe-Émile Messager, a prosperous local tax collector, and Sophie-Cornélie Lhôte de Selancy. The young Messager was given piano lessons, and at the age of seven he was sent as a boarder to a Marist
Marist Brothers
The Marist Brothers, or Little Brothers of Mary, are a Catholic religious order of brothers and affiliated lay people. The order was founded in France, at La Valla-en-Gier near Lyon in 1817 by Saint Marcellin Champagnat, a young French priest of the Society of Mary...
school where he continued his interest in the piano. After a bank crash brought ruin to the family, which could no longer afford to keep Messager at the Marist school, he was awarded a bursary to study at the École de Musique classique et religieuse in Paris, run by Louis Niedermeyer
Louis Niedermeyer
Abraham Louis Niedermeyer was a composer chiefly of church music but also of a few operas, and a teacher who took over the Ecole Choron, duly renamed École Niedermeyer, a school for the study and practice of church music, where several eminent French musicians studied including Gabriel Fauré and...
. This was at the time of the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
, and to escape the violence in the city, the school was temporarily evacuated to Switzerland. Messager studied piano with Adam Lausset, organ with Clément Loret, and composition with Eugène Gigout
Eugène Gigout
Eugène Gigout was a French organist and a composer of European late-romantic music for organ.-Biography:Gigout was born in Nancy, and died in Paris....
, Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
and (after leaving Niedermeyer's school) Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
.
Fauré and Messager quickly moved from being master and pupil to being firm friends and occasional collaborators. In 1874 Messager was appointed to succeed Fauré as organiste de choeur (choirmaster) at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, under the principal organist, Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Widor
Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...
. In 1876, he won the gold medal of the Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique with a symphony, the work being warmly received when performed by the Concerts Colonne at the Théâtre du Châtelet
Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...
in January 1878. He won further prizes for his cantatas Prométhée enchaîné and Don Juan et Haydée.
In 1878, Fauré and Messager travelled together to Cologne
Cologne Opera
The Cologne Opera refers both to the main opera house in Cologne, Germany and to its resident opera company.-History of the company:...
to see Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
and Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, and later they went to Munich
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
for the complete Ring
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
cycle, Die Meistersinger and Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
and to Bayreuth
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
for Die Meistersinger and Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
. They frequently performed as a party piece their joint composition, the irreverent Souvenirs de Bayreuth. This short, skittish piano work for four hands sends up themes from The Ring. They also collaborated on the Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville
Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville
The Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville is a missa brevis written by Gabriel Fauré in collaboration with his former pupil André Messager...
.
First successes
Batignolles
Batignolles is a neighborhood of Paris, a part of the 17th arrondissement of the city. The neighborhood is bounded on the south by the Boulevard des Batignolles, on the east by the Avenue de Clichy, on the north by the Rue Cardinet, and on the west by the Rue de Rome.-History:Batignolles was an...
a small church in the north west of Paris, where his assistant was another young composer, Claude Terrasse
Claude Terrasse
Claude Terrasse , was a French composer of operettas.Claude Terrasse was considered by some as the true successor to Jacques Offenbach , one of the originators of the operetta form, a precursor of the modern musical comedy.Terrasse was born in L'Arbresle, Rhône...
.
In 1883, the composer Firmin Bernicat died, leaving an unfinished operetta, François les bas-bleus
François les bas-bleus
François les bas-bleus is an opéra comique in three acts of 1883, with a French libretto by Ernest Dubreuil, Eugène Humbert, Paul Burani, and music by Firmin Bernicat, completed by André Messager.-Background:...
. Messager was invited to complete it; he orchestrated the entire work and composed about 12 numbers. It was staged in November 1883 at the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques
Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques
The Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques was a theatre in Paris in the 19th and 20th centuries. Opened first in 1832 in the site of the old Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique on the Boulevard du Temple, under Frédérick Lemaître it became a noted venue for the genre of mélodrame.In 1862, the theatre moved to the...
and was an immediate critical and popular success. It was produced in London by Kate Santley
Kate Santley
Kate Santley was an American-born English actress, singer, comedienne, and theatre manager. Her brother was the English baritone, Sir Charles Santley, famous in Wagner's Flying Dutchman among other roles.-Musical theatre career:...
in 1885 under the title François the Radical. In 1883, Messager married a distant cousin, Edith Clouette. Fauré played the organ at the ceremony.
In December 1883 Messager and Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...
gave the first performance of the latter's Trois valses romantiques
Trois valses romantiques
The Trois valses romantiques are a set of three pieces for two pianos by Emmanuel Chabrier.-History:Chabrier began the composition in mid 1880, completing the first two; the third was not completed until the summer of 1883...
at the Société Nationale de Musique
Société Nationale de Musique
The Société Nationale de Musique was founded on February 25, 1871 to promote French music and to allow young composers to present their music in public...
. The concert also included the two-piano version premiere of España. A close friend of Chabrier from the 1880s until Chabrier's death, Messager had a great admiration for Chabrier's opera Gwendoline and swore that he would conduct it in Paris, which he later did. He also prepared a piano reduction of the orchestral parts for the published vocal score of the work.
Following the success of François les bas-bleus
François les bas-bleus
François les bas-bleus is an opéra comique in three acts of 1883, with a French libretto by Ernest Dubreuil, Eugène Humbert, Paul Burani, and music by Firmin Bernicat, completed by André Messager.-Background:...
, Messager received, and accepted, simultaneous invitations to compose a ballet for the Opéra and an operetta for the Folies-Dramatiques. The operetta, La fauvette du temple
La fauvette du temple
La fauvette du temple is an opéra comique in three acts of 1885, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Paul Burani and Eugène Humbert....
, first performed on 17 November 1885, confirmed Messager's reputation. It ran well into the following year in Paris, and he was able to sell the British rights immediately, though the work was not staged in London until 1891. The ballet, Les deux pigeons
The Two Pigeons
The Two Pigeons is a fable by Jean de la Fontaine that was adapted as a ballet with music by André Messager in the 19th century and rechoreagraphed to the same music by Frederick Ashton in the 20th....
, which became one of Messager's best known works, took longer to reach the stage. It was put into rehearsal at the Opéra, but the staging, which showed a tree being struck by lightning in a storm scene, was considered a fire hazard by the police authorities, and the production was temporarily shelved.
A month after the opening of La fauvette du temple the Bouffes-Parisiens premiered Messager's opéra comique, La Béarnaise
La Béarnaise
La Béarnaise is an opéra comique in three acts of 1885, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo.-History:...
, with Jeanne Granier
Jeanne Granier
Jeanne Granier was a French soprano, born 31 March 1852 in Paris, and died there on 18 or 19 December 1939.Granier was a pupil of Barthe-Banderali, studying both opéra-comique and Italian music....
in the title role. It ran for three months and was successfully produced in Britain the following year with a cast including Florence St. John
Florence St. John
Florence St. John , was an English singer and actress of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras famous for her roles in operetta, musical burlesque, music hall, opera and, later, comic plays.-Life and career:...
and Marie Tempest
Marie Tempest
Dame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
, running for more than 200 performances. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said of this production that it gave Messager a secure footing in London, which led to important results later in his career. A production of La Béarnaise in New York followed in 1887, under the title Jacquette.
In 1886 Les deux pigeons was finally produced at the Paris Opéra and was a great success. It was Messager's last success for four years. His attempt at a more serious opera, Le bourgeois de Calais
Le bourgeois de Calais
Le bourgeois de Calais is an opéra comique in three acts of 1887, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Ernest Dubreuil, Paul Burani....
(1888), with "a boring historical plot, bad lyrics, and a banal score" was not well-received. One critic wrote, "That Le Bourgeois de Calais will have a successful career there is not the faintest chance, for all the patriotic bolstering in the world could not make it an attractive piece." Messager followed this with a musical fairy tale Isoline
Isoline (opera)
Isoline is an opera, described as a 'conte de fées' in three acts and ten tableaux, on a text by Catulle Mendès, with music by André Messager.-Background:...
(1888), which was slightly better received, and a three-act operetta, Le mari de la reine
Le mari de la reine
Le mari de la reine is an opérette in three acts of 1889, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by E Grenet-Dancourt and Octave Pradels....
(The Queen's Husband, 1889), which failed, although Messager thought it "the best of my flops." Also in the 1880s, Messager published some song cycles, and "sung waltzes".
Fin de siècle
Messager's fortunes revived in 1890 with La BasocheLa Basoche
La Basoche is an opéra comique in three acts of 1890, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Albert Carré.-History:Messager's 1889 opérette Le mari de la reine at Bouffes-Parisiens was a disappointment, and the composer and his wife were struggling to afford even basic necessities...
, produced with much success at the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
. The critic who had pronounced so unfavourably on Le Bourgeois de Calais wrote of the new piece, "an exceptionally pleasing work … a dainty piece which cannot fail to obtain widespread popularity." An English-language version was produced in London in 1891 by Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
. The theatrical newspaper The Era
The Era (newspaper)
The Era was a British weekly paper, published from 1838 to 1939. Originally a general newspaper, it became noted for its sports coverage, and later for its theatrical content.-History:...
wrote, "The Basoche is more than a success; it is a triumph", but the piece had only a moderately successful run of three months. A New York production was given in 1893 but was not a success.
In 1892 Messager's career as a conductor began to advance. He was invited to conduct Die Walküre at Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
. As a composer, however, the early 1890s brought him mixed fortunes. Madame Chrysanthème
Madame Chrysanthème
Madame Chrysanthème is an opera, described as a comédie lyrique, with music by André Messager to a libretto by Georges Hartmann and Alexandre André, after the semi-autobiographical Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti...
, staged at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1893, was the first operatic setting of the story by Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...
later set by Puccini as Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
; it was politely rather than enthusiastically received. Mirette
Mirette (opera)
Mirette is an opéra comique in three acts composed by André Messager, first produced at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 3 July 1894.Mirette exists in two distinct versions. The first version of the libretto was written in French by Michel Carré but this was never performed. English lyrics were...
, produced by Carte at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
in 1894, was Messager's first opera written expressly for the London stage and was the only original Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
by a French composer. To assist him in what was for him (at the time) an unfamiliar idiom, he enlisted the help of the songwriter Dotie (Alice Maude) Davis (1859–1938), known professionally as Hope Temple
Hope Temple
Hope Temple, née Dotie Davis was an Irish songwriter and composer. She was also known as Mrs. André Charles Prosper Messager and Dottie Davis.Alice Davis was born in Dublin, Ireland and was known professionally as Hope Temple...
. She became Messager's second wife in 1895, Edith having divorced him. According to Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, Messager, concluding from the reception of La Basoche in London that it was unwise to offer the British public anything too intelligent, decided that the new opera was going to be as commonplace as possible. It had a disappointing run, and Messager vetoed any production in Paris.
His next opera, a serious work, Le chevalier d'Harmental
Le chevalier d'Harmental
Le chevalier d’Harmental is an opéra comique in five acts of 1896, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Paul Ferrier, after Dumas père and Auguste Maquet. The play of the novel – in five acts, a prologue and ten tableaux – was first performed on 16 July 1849 at the...
(1896), was unsuccessful, and for a while Messager and his new wife withdrew to the English countryside near Maidenhead
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a town and unparished area within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England. It lies on the River Thames and is situated west of Charing Cross in London.-History:...
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
. From 1897, however, his career revived, with the success of his operetta Les p'tites Michu at the Bouffes-Parisiens, his appointment in 1898 as musical director of the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, and the outstanding success of Véronique
Véronique (operetta)
Véronique is an opéra comique or operetta in three acts composed by André Messager. The French libretto was by Georges Duval and Albert Vanloo...
(1898). Both of these operettas had librettos by Albert Vanloo
Albert Vanloo
Albert Vanloo was a Belgian librettist and playwright.Vanloo lived in Paris as a child and was attracted to the theatre. As a young student he began writing plays and opéra comique libretti, notably with Eugène Leterrier who remained his main collaborator until the latter's death in 1884...
and Georges Duval, whose work was judged to be above the average of their kind.
From 1898 to 1904, Messager's work at the Opéra-Comique left him little time for composition, particularly after 1901, when he also spent May to July at the Royal Opera House in London. He turned down W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's offer of a collaboration, and wrote only two stage works between 1898 and 1914. His international fame as a composer nevertheless grew, with productions of Les p'tites Michu and Véronique in countries including Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the U.S. Unusually for the London stage at the time, Véronique was not translated into English but was given in Vanloo and Duval's original French in 1903. An English translation was staged the following year and ran for 496 performances. Messager conducted the first nights of both productions.
At the Opéra-Comique, Messager encouraged Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
to complete his opera Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
and worked closely with him in getting the orchestration ready for the premiere. He conducted the premiere in 1902 and in gratitude the work was dedicated to him. Messager also conducted the premieres of Massenet's
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
Grisélidis
Grisélidis
Grisélidis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand. It is based on the play by the same authors first performed at the Comédie-Française on 15 May 1891, which is drawn from the medieval tale of 'patient Grissil'...
and Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier, , born in Dieuze, Moselle on 25 June 1860, died Paris, 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.-Life and career:...
's Louise
Louise (opera)
Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists....
. As a conductor, he won praise from critics on both sides of the English Channel. The English music critic Francis Toye
Francis Toye
John Francis Toye was an English music critic, teacher, writer and educational administrator. After early efforts as a composer and novelist, and service in naval intelligence in World War I, he became music critic of The Morning Post from 1925 to 1937, which he combined with teaching singing and...
wrote that good though Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
's conducting of Pelléas et Mélisande was at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan, Messager's was still better.
Twentieth century
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
opera seasons, featuring the leading singers of the day, including Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
and Enrico Caruso. Much of his time, according to his biographer John Wagstaff, was spent on administration. From 1901, for two years, Messager had an affair with the Scottish soprano Mary Garden
Mary Garden
Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
, whom he had met at the Opéra-Comique and conducted when she took over the title role of Louise. She also appeared in a revival of his Madame Chrysanthème. His first appearance at Covent Garden was in 1902 with the first and second performances of The Princess Osra (in French) by Herbert Bunning. He next conducted at Covent Garden in 1904 in the British premiere of Saint-Saens's Hélène
Hélène (opera)
Hélène is a poème lyrique or opera in one act by composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It is the first opera for which Saint-Saëns wrote his own French libretto which is based on the classic story of Helen of Troy and Paris from Greek mythology. The opera premiered at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in Monaco on...
, followed in 1905 by Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
, the world première of Franco Leoni
Franco Leoni
Franco Leoni was an Italian opera composer. After training in Milan, he made most of his career in England, composing for Covent Garden and West End theatres. He is best known for the opera L'Oracolo, written for Covent Garden but taken up successfully by the Metropolitan Opera in New York...
's L'oracolo, Orphée et Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
and Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
; in his final year 1906 he conducted Armide
Armide (Gluck)
Armide is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, his fifth for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works. It was first performed in Paris at the Académie Royale on 23 September 1777....
, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, the British premiere of Le jongleur de Notre-Dame
Le jongleur de Notre-Dame
Le jongleur de Notre-Dame is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Maurice Léna. It was first performed in Monte Carlo on 18 February 1902.-History:...
, and Roméo et Juliette. In 1906 he also introduced to Covent Garden his ballet Les deux pigeons. Despite his reputation as a Wagnerian, he yielded the baton for Wagner performances to Hans Richter
Hans Richter (conductor)
Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...
, widely regarded as the world's foremost exponent of Wagner's music. In 1906, Messager and the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
travelled to Paris to play a programme of English music at the Châtelet Theatre, including works by Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
and Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
. When he left Covent Garden in 1907, the directors found it necessary to appoint two people to fill his place: Neil Forsyth as general manager and Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt was an English organist and conductor.A native of London, Pitt studied music at the conservatory in Leipzig, also working in Munich with Josef Rheinberger...
as musical director.
In 1907 Messager returned to composition. His "comédie lyrique", Fortunio
Fortunio (opera)
Fortunio comédie lyrique or opera in 4 Acts and 5 tableaux by composer André Messager. The French language libretto by Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers is based on Alfred de Musset's comedy Le Chandelier. A stage work in the opéra comique tradition, the opera contains some spoken...
was presented at the Opéra-Comique with great success. In the same year he was appointed joint director of the Paris Opéra, responsible for the artistic direction, with Leimistin Broussan, formerly director of the Lyons Opera, taking charge of administration. The partnership lasted until 1914 but, Wagstaff writes, it was "only moderately successful, because of shortage of funds and disputes with staff". Messager decided on a policy of making the Opéra "more genuinely French". He revived Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie
Hippolyte et Aricie
Hippolyte et Aricie was the first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, which opened to great controversy at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris on October 1, 1733. The libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre. The opera takes the traditional form of a tragédie en...
, for the first time in Paris since 1767, and presented unusual French repertoire including Fauré's Pénélope and Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's L'heure espagnole
L'heure espagnole
L'heure espagnole is a one-act opera, described as a comédie musicale, with music by Maurice Ravel to a French libretto by Franc-Nohain, based on his play of the same name first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon on 28 October 1904...
. Foreign opera was not neglected; Messager gave Paris its first complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
, presented a Russian season starring Félia Litvinne
Félia Litvinne
Félia Litvinne was a Russian-born, French-based dramatic soprano. She was particularly associated with Wagnerian roles, although she also sang a wide range of parts by other opera composers....
and Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, and gave the French premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
. At the invitation of the Emperor Wilhelm II, Messager and Broussan took the Opéra company to Berlin in 1908. Relations between the two co-directors were not always harmonious; the French government was obliged to refuse to accept Messager's resignation on at least one occasion, and he finally resigned in November 1913, a year before their term of office was due to expire. He consented to return in January 1914 to conduct Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
– its first performance in Europe outside Bayreuth. His conducting of the work won critical praise.
On the strength of his experience as a Wagnerian, Messager was appointed conductor of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in 1908. Alongside the main orchestral repertoire of Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and French classics, Messager also conducted the Conservatoire orchestra in major choral works by J. S. Bach, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
and Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, as well as introducing early French music such as Janequin
Clément Janequin
Clément Janequin was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous composers of popular chansons of the entire Renaissance, and along with Claudin de Sermisy, was hugely influential in the development of the Parisian chanson, especially the programmatic type...
. In the 1913–14 season, Messager conducted a chronological cycle of Beethoven's symphonies and his Missa Solemnis
Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)
The Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819-1823. It was first performed on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie,...
, as well as the Verdi Requiem
Requiem (Verdi)
The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...
, for the Italian composer's centenary. Messager took the orchestra outside Paris to Lille, Lyon and Antwerp during these years. During World War I, he took the orchestra on tour to Argentina (1916), Switzerland (1917), and the U.S. and Canada (1918–19) giving concerts in more than 50 cities. At the end of that tour he resigned his post. Messager was criticised for performing the music of Wagner, but he maintained that German music represented the noble side of the enemy nation's nature. Like Fauré, but unlike Saint-Saëns, Messager refused to have anything to do with the National League for the Defence of French Music (La Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française), which sought to boycott German music.
In 1914 Messager composed Béatrice, described as a "légende lyrique", based on the 1911 play The Miracle
The Miracle (play)
The Miracle was a 1911 play written by Karl Vollmöller and directed by Max Reinhardt, from which three movie versions were later adapted. The play first appeared as a spectacle-pantomime in Germany in 1911....
. The premiere was in Monte Carlo. The work was performed in Paris in 1917 but was not successful. In 1915 Messager joined with other musicians in contributing compositions to King Albert's Book to raise money for "the relief of the suffering Belgian people"; the other composers included Debussy, Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
, Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.-Biography:...
and Saint-Saëns.
In 1919 Messager's operetta Monsieur Beaucaire
Monsieur Beaucaire (operetta)
Monsieur Beaucaire is a romantic opera in three acts, composed by André Messager. The libretto, based on the 1900 novel by Booth Tarkington, is by Frederick Lonsdale, with lyrics by Adrian Ross...
was premiered in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, prior to a long run in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. The composer, who generally conducted British premieres of his works, was suffering from sciatica and could not even be in the audience for the first nights in either city. The work received its Paris premiere at the Marigny Theatre in 1925. Later in 1919, Messager resumed the musical directorship of the Opéra-Comique for the 1919–20 season, conducting among other works the first complete French performance of Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
. At the Opéra, he was the conductor for Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
on the 100th anniversary of Wagner's birth.
Last years
In the 1920s, Messager kept pace with the change in fashion in musical theatre, consciously adopting the styles of musical comedy, lightening his orchestration, but maintaining a Gallic flavour, mostly avoiding American dance-rhythm influences. He collaborated with Yvonne PrintempsYvonne Printemps
Yvonne Printemps was a French singer and actress.-Biography:Born Yvonne Wigniolle, she made her debut at the age of 12 in a revue at La Cigale in Paris. She was dancing at the Folies Bergère at age 13...
and Sacha Guitry
Sacha Guitry
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
on the musical comedies Deburau (which he dedicated to the memory of Fauré), and L'amour masqué
L'amour masqué
L’amour masqué is a comédie musicale in three acts with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Sacha Guitry, based on the work by Ivan Caryll. It was originally to be called J'ai deux amants - the title of a song for 'Elle' in Act I...
. In his late operettas, his lighter touch was balanced by echoes of the nineteenth century, with hints of Fauré and, particularly, Chabrier's L'Etoile.
In 1924 Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
persuaded Messager to conduct the Paris premieres of Auric's ballet Les Fâcheux and Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
's Les Biches
Les Biches
Les biches is a ballet by Francis Poulenc, premiered by the Ballets Russes in 1924. The composer, who was at the time relatively unknown, was asked by Serge Diaghilev to write a piece based on Glazunov's Les Sylphides, written seventeen years earlier...
. In 1928 Messager played a key role in establishing important updates to copyright law, though he was on the losing side of the case. He sued the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
for breach of copyright for broadcasting his works without his consent. He lost because he had assigned his British performing rights to George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
, whose estate had given the BBC permission for the broadcast. The case established that as the broadcasting rights had not been specifically reserved, the Edwardes estate's rights included them.
Messager died in 1929 after a short illness and was interred in the Passy Cemetery
Passy Cemetery
The Passy Cemetery is a famous cemetery located at 2, rue du Commandant Schlœsing in Passy, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France.-History:...
. Coups de roulis was running in Paris when he died. One critic commented, "Its tuneful melodies show that the veteran composer had lost nothing of the qualities that made Véronique such a success. Throughout his life Messager remained without a peer as a composer of light music."
Honours, awards and reputation
Messager was elected President of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques in 1926, the first composer to hold this office. In the same year he was elected to the Académie des Beaux Arts. In 1927 he was appointed Commander of the Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. In his native town of Montluçon, the new music academy, opened in 2009, is named the Conservatoire André Messager.
Music
The biographer John Wagstaff writes that Messager's music is notable for its fine orchestration, easy-flowing melody, and skilfully written music, dance-like in character. Messager's operettas are in the tradition of OffenbachJacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, Hervé
Hervé (composer)
Hervé , real name Louis Auguste Florimond Ronger, was a French singer, composer, librettist, conductor and scene painter, whom Ernest Newman, following Reynaldo Hahn, credited with inventing the genre of operetta in Paris.-Life:Hervé was born in Houdain near Arras...
and Lecocq
Alexandre Charles Lecocq
Alexandre Charles Lecocq was a French musical composer. He was admitted into the Conservatoire in 1849, being already an accomplished pianist. He studied under François Bazin, François Benoist, and Fromental Halévy, winning the first prize for harmony in 1850, and the second prize for fugue in 1852...
, and some saw him as the last of their line. Wagstaff quotes Messager's biographer and pupil Henry Février: "La Basoche was the last great French opéra comique of the 19th century, and Messager’s next opérettes, especially Les p’tites Michu and Véronique, certainly show a difference in style from the earlier works, bringing an altogether fresher approach to the genre." Although, as Wagstaff notes, Messager’s contribution to French music as a composer was recognised by his musical contemporaries internationally, his fame as a composer of light music has tended to obscure his considerable standing in contemporary serious musical circles. The leading composers of the time valued his friendship and advice. Fauré said of him, "familiar with everything, knowing it all, fascinated by anything new". Messager's younger colleague, the composer Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....
, wrote, "I doubt if any musician has ever loved music as much as André Messager did. It would simply be impossible to have wider musical interests than he did. Right up to the end of his life too."
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians is a biographical dictionary of musicians.The first edition of Baker's, under the title A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, was published in 1900 by Theodore Baker; it has since gone through nine editions.The 5th edition of 1958, 8th edition of 1992,...
says of Messager, "His style may be described as enlightened eclecticism; his music was characteristically French, and more specifically Parisian, in its elegance and gaiety." The English musicologist Gervase Hughes
Gervase Hughes
Gervase Alfred Booth Hughes was an English composer, conductor and writer on music. From 1926 to 1933, Hughes pursued a career as a conductor and chorus master, principally at the British National Opera Company, and also co-produced Shakespeare plays...
wrote, "He combined melodic richness and economy of means with the fluid grace of Jules Massenet, the aristocratic elegance of Camille Saint Saëns and the refined subtlety of Gabriel Fauré".
Recordings
Messager's career lasted into the beginning of the recording era. In New York in November 1918, with the Paris Conservatoire OrchestraOrchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
The Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire was a symphony orchestra established in Paris in 1828. It gave its first concert on 9 March 1828 with music by Beethoven, Rossini, Meifreid, Rode and Cherubini....
, he recorded Les Chasseresses and Cortège de Bacchus from Sylvia
Sylvia (ballet)
Sylvia, originally Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique...
by Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
, Sérénade and Mules from Impressions d'Italie by Charpentier, the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and the Prelude to Le Déluge
Le Déluge (Saint-Saëns)
Le Déluge , Op. 45, is a French oratorio written by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1875 and scored for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. The libretto, a "poème biblique" by Louis Gallet, is based on the biblical story of Noah and the flood...
, both by Saint-Saëns, and 4½-minute extracts from Capriccio Espagnol
Capriccio espagnol
Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34, is the common Western title for an orchestral work based on Spanish folk melodies and written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. Rimsky-Korsakov originally intended to write the work for a solo violin with orchestra, but later decided that a purely orchestral work...
by Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
and from Le Rouet d'Omphale by Saint-Saëns.
Of Messager's works performed by other artists, there are complete recordings of several of his operas, and extracts from others. There have been two complete sets of Véronique – a 1953 Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
mono recording conducted by Pierre Dervaux
Pierre Dervaux
Pierre Dervaux was a French operatic conductor, composer, and pedagogue. At the Conservatoire de Paris, he studied counterpoint and harmony with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau and Jean and Noël Gallon, as well as piano with Isidor Philipp, Armand Ferté, and Yves Nat...
, and a 1969 stereo EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
recording conducted by Jean-Claude Hartemann. Other complete sets of Messager operas include L'amour masqué (1970; conductor, Raymond Legrand), La Basoche (1960; Tony Aubin
Tony Aubin
Tony Louis Alexandre Aubin was a French composer.From 1925 to 1930 Aubin studied at the Paris Conservatory under Samuel Rousseau , Noel Gallon , Philippe Gaubert , and Paul Dukas . He was awarded the Prix de Rome for the cantata Actaeon in 1930...
), Coups de roulis (1963; Marcel Cariven), Fortunio (1987; John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
), Isoline (1947; Louis Beydts
Louis Beydts
Louis Beydts was a French composer, music critic and theatre director, born 29 June 1895 in Bordeaux and died on 15 August 1953 at Caudéran in Gironde.-Life and career:...
), Monsieur Beaucaire (1958; Jules Gressier), and Passionnément (1964; Jean-Paul Kreder).
Singers who have recorded individual numbers from Messager's operas include role creators such as Jean Périer
Jean Périer
Jean Périer was a French operatic baritone and actor. Although he sang principally within the operetta repertoire, Périer did portray a number of opera roles; mostly within operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini...
(Véronique), Lucien Fugère
Lucien Fugère
Lucien Fugère was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory and Mozart roles, he enjoyed an exceptionally long career, singing into his 80s.- Life and career :...
(La basoche), Pierre Darmant and Yvonne Printemps (L'amour masqué), Koval (Passionément), Marcelle Denya (Coups de roulis), and Maggie Teyte
Maggie Teyte
Dame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...
(Monsieur Beaucaire), as well as other contemporaries Aino Ackté
Aino Ackté
Aino Ackté was a Finnish soprano. She was the first international star of the Finnish opera scene after Alma Fohström, and a groundbreaker for the domestic field....
, Emma Eames
Emma Eames
Emma Eames was an American soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.-Early life:The daughter of...
, and John McCormack whose recordings have been reissued on compact disc. Singers of the next generation who recorded Messager numbers included Georges Thill
Georges Thill
Georges Thill was a French opera singer, often considered to be his country's greatest lyric-dramatic tenor...
and Ninon Vallin
Ninon Vallin
Ninon Vallin was a French soprano who achieved considerable popularity in opera, operetta and classical song recitals during an international career which lasted for more than four decades. [Note: Vallin's birthday is sometimes given as September 7 or September 9.]-Career:Ninon Vallin was born...
. More recent singers who have recorded numbers from Messager's operas include Mady Mesplé
Mady Mesplé
Mady Mesplé is a French opera singer, the leading high coloratura soprano of her generation in France, sometimes heralded as the successor to Mado Robin.-Biography:...
, Susan Graham
Susan Graham
Susan Graham is an American mezzo-soprano.Raised in Midland, Texas, she is a graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years...
, Felicity Lott
Felicity Lott
Dame Felicity Ann Emwhyla Lott, DBE, FRCM is an English soprano.-Education:From her earliest years she was musical, having started studying piano at age 5. She also played violin and began singing lessons at 12. She is an alumna of Royal Holloway, University of London, obtaining a BA in French and...
and Anna Netrebko
Anna Netrebko
Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...
.
Of Messager's non-operatic works, his Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville, written jointly with Fauré, has been recorded by Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
(1989). Messager's other collaboration with Fauré, the Wagner send-up Souvenirs de Bayreuth, has been recorded by several piano duettists, including Kathryn Stott
Kathryn Stott
Kathryn Stott is a British classical pianist who performs as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Her specialities include the English and French classical repertoire, contemporary classical music and the tango...
and Martin Roscoe
Martin Roscoe
Martin Roscoe is an English classical pianist. He teaches piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the Department of Keyboard Studies. He performs as a concerto soloist, as a recitalist and as a chamber musician....
(1995, Hyperion), and Patrick de Hooge and Pierre-Alain Volondat (2000, Naxos). A suite from Les deux pigeons has been recorded several times, and in 1993 Decca recorded the complete score, with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
conducted by Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
.
Operas and operettas
- Les païens, opérette (c. 1876) lost
- Les beignets du roi, opéra comiqueOpéra comiqueOpéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
, first version - François les bas-bleusFrançois les bas-bleusFrançois les bas-bleus is an opéra comique in three acts of 1883, with a French libretto by Ernest Dubreuil, Eugène Humbert, Paul Burani, and music by Firmin Bernicat, completed by André Messager.-Background:...
, opéra comiqueOpéra comiqueOpéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
(1883, Paris) - Gisèle, opérette (c. 1884-5) lost
- La fauvette du templeLa fauvette du templeLa fauvette du temple is an opéra comique in three acts of 1885, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Paul Burani and Eugène Humbert....
, opéra comique (1885, Paris) - La BéarnaiseLa BéarnaiseLa Béarnaise is an opéra comique in three acts of 1885, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo.-History:...
, opéra comique (1885, Paris) - Le bourgeois de CalaisLe bourgeois de CalaisLe bourgeois de Calais is an opéra comique in three acts of 1887, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Ernest Dubreuil, Paul Burani....
, opéra comique (1887, Paris) - Les premières armes de Louis XV, opéra comique (1888, Paris)
- IsolineIsoline (opera)Isoline is an opera, described as a 'conte de fées' in three acts and ten tableaux, on a text by Catulle Mendès, with music by André Messager.-Background:...
, conte des fées (1888, Paris) - Le mari de la reineLe mari de la reineLe mari de la reine is an opérette in three acts of 1889, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by E Grenet-Dancourt and Octave Pradels....
, opérette (1889, Paris) - La BasocheLa BasocheLa Basoche is an opéra comique in three acts of 1890, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Albert Carré.-History:Messager's 1889 opérette Le mari de la reine at Bouffes-Parisiens was a disappointment, and the composer and his wife were struggling to afford even basic necessities...
, opéra comique (1890, Paris) - Madame ChrysanthèmeMadame ChrysanthèmeMadame Chrysanthème is an opera, described as a comédie lyrique, with music by André Messager to a libretto by Georges Hartmann and Alexandre André, after the semi-autobiographical Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti...
, comédie lyrique (1893, Paris) - Miss Dollar, opérette (1893, Paris)
- Amants éternels, pantomime (1893, Paris)
- MiretteMirette (opera)Mirette is an opéra comique in three acts composed by André Messager, first produced at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 3 July 1894.Mirette exists in two distinct versions. The first version of the libretto was written in French by Michel Carré but this was never performed. English lyrics were...
(1894, London) - La fiancée en loterie, opérette (1896, Paris)
- Le chevalier d'HarmentalLe chevalier d'HarmentalLe chevalier d’Harmental is an opéra comique in five acts of 1896, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Paul Ferrier, after Dumas père and Auguste Maquet. The play of the novel – in five acts, a prologue and ten tableaux – was first performed on 16 July 1849 at the...
, opéra comique (1896, Paris) - La montagne enchantée, pièce fantastique (1897, Paris)
- Les p'tites Michu, opérette (1897, Paris)
- VéroniqueVéronique (operetta)Véronique is an opéra comique or operetta in three acts composed by André Messager. The French libretto was by Georges Duval and Albert Vanloo...
, opéra comique (1898, Paris) - Les dragons de l'impératrice, opéra comique (1905, Paris)
- FortunioFortunio (opera)Fortunio comédie lyrique or opera in 4 Acts and 5 tableaux by composer André Messager. The French language libretto by Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers is based on Alfred de Musset's comedy Le Chandelier. A stage work in the opéra comique tradition, the opera contains some spoken...
, comédie lyrique (1907, Paris) - BéatriceBéatrice (opera)Béatrice is a légende lyrique in four acts of 1914, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Caillavet and Flers, after the short story La légende de Soeur Béatrix by Nodier.-Background:...
, légende lyrique (1914, Monte Carlo) - Monsieur BeaucaireMonsieur Beaucaire (operetta)Monsieur Beaucaire is a romantic opera in three acts, composed by André Messager. The libretto, based on the 1900 novel by Booth Tarkington, is by Frederick Lonsdale, with lyrics by Adrian Ross...
, romantic operetta (1919, Birmingham) - Cyprien, ôte ta main de là!, fantaisie (1920, Paris)
- La petite fonctionnaireLa petite fonctionnaireLa petite fonctionnaire is a comédie musicale in three acts of 1921, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Alfred Capus and Xavier Roux, based on a play by Capus.-Background:...
, comédie musicale (1921, Paris) - L'amour masquéL'amour masquéL’amour masqué is a comédie musicale in three acts with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Sacha Guitry, based on the work by Ivan Caryll. It was originally to be called J'ai deux amants - the title of a song for 'Elle' in Act I...
, comédie musicale (1923, Paris) - PassionémentPassionémentPassionnément is a comédie musicale in three acts with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Maurice Hennequin and lyrics by Albert Willemetz. The title comes from the refrain of a waltz-song in the second act.-Performance history:...
, comédie musicale (1926, Paris) - Deburau, comédie (1926, Paris)
- Coups de roulisCoups de roulisCoups de roulis is an opérette in three acts with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Albert Willemetz, based on the 1925 novel by Maurice Larrouy.-Performance history:...
, opérette (1928, Paris) - Sacha (1933, Monte-Carlo)
Ballets
- Fleur d'oranger, ballet (1878)
- Les vins de France, ballet (1879)
- Mignons et villains, ballet (1879)
- Les deux pigeonsThe Two PigeonsThe Two Pigeons is a fable by Jean de la Fontaine that was adapted as a ballet with music by André Messager in the 19th century and rechoreagraphed to the same music by Frederick Ashton in the 20th....
, ballet (1886) - Scaramouche, ballet (1891)
- Amants éternels, ballet (1893)
- Le chevalier aux fleurs, ballet (1897)
- La montagne enchantée, ballet (1897)
- Une aventure de la Guimard, ballet (1900)
- Suite de danses, one-act ballet (1913) (Arrangement in collaboration with Paul VidalPaul VidalPaul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...
of piano music by Frédéric ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
)
Instrumental and other music
- Symphony (1876)
- (with FauréGabriel FauréGabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
) Souvenirs de Bayreuth (piano, four hands), fantaisie en forme de quadrille (1888?) - Incidental music for Colibri (1889)
- Solo de Concours, clarinet & piano (1899)
- Impromptu (Op. 10), Habanera (Op. 11), Menuet (Op. 12), Mazurka (Op. 13), Caprice-Polka (Op. 14), Valse (Op. 15) for piano
- Incidental music to the drame lyrique HélèneHélène (drama)Hélène is a drame in four acts and five tableaux of 1891, with French words by Paul Delair and incidental music by André Messager.The story, found by the author in the fait divers of a newspaper concerns a child, Hélène, who, learning that her father has been murdered by his mother, swears...
, (1891, Paris)
External links
- Profile of Messager
- List of stage works by Messager
- Société des concerts du Conservatoire
- Tbilisi Opera and Ballet
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