Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter
Encyclopedia
Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter was a French librettist, translator
, writer and librarian
born in Paris
, France on 24 April 1828. He died there on 23 February 1899 after suffering a stroke a few days before.
, operas bouffes
, operettas and ballets. It is estimated that he wrote or co-authored around 500 theatrical pieces, including libretti for several works by Offenbach
, the scenario for Léo Delibes
's ballet Coppélia
(Nuitter had wanted the piece to be called La poupée de Nurnberg) and pieces by Hervé
, Guiraud
, Lalo
, Lecocq
and others, of which 100 or so were staged.
He helped translate Wagner
's operas into French (Tannhäuser
, 1861, Rienzi
, 1869, Lohengrin
1870 and Der fliegende Holländer
, 1872). Other translations include I Capuleti e i Montecchi
, Oberon
, Abu Hassan
, Die Zauberflöte
, and Verdi
's Macbeth
, Aida
, La forza del destino
and Simon Boccanegra
. Wagner and Verdi esteemed highly the quality of his translations, and he assisted Verdi over the revision of Don Carlos
in 1882–83. From a different era, Nuitter's translation of La Prière du matin et du soir by Emilio de' Cavalieri
(1600) was performed regularly at the Concerts du Conservatoire
during the 1870s–80s and beyond.
in 1863, he became official archivist there three years later, and ended his career in law (he had given legal advice to Offenbach in a dispute with the manager of the Bouffes-Parisiens prior to the 1864 premiere of La belle Hélène
).
His archival work was extremely important in cataloguing the existing library, rescuing documents from destruction, and acquiring autograph documents and journals (sometimes at his own expense) for the collection. Acquisitions by Nuitter included an important collection of theatre books by Joseph de Filippi and around 900 opera librettos from a former director of the théâtre, Nestor Roqueplan.
His influence on the expansion of the archive was impressive. In 1861, there were 350 volumes; by the end of 1862 there were 1,076, and in 1882 7,807. He ensured that their importance was taken in to account when the Palais Garnier
opened in 1875.
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
, writer and librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France on 24 April 1828. He died there on 23 February 1899 after suffering a stroke a few days before.
Librettist and translator
Nuitter studied law and practised in Paris from 1849. He was a keen theatre-goer, and in the 1850s he started writing librettos, mainly vaudevilles, later opéras comiqueOpéra 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...
, operas bouffes
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form....
, operettas and ballets. It is estimated that he wrote or co-authored around 500 theatrical pieces, including libretti for several works by Offenbach
Jacques 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....
, the scenario for Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
's ballet Coppélia
Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann , and Die Puppe...
(Nuitter had wanted the piece to be called La poupée de Nurnberg) and pieces by 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...
, Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud
Ernest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...
, Lalo
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...
, 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 others, of which 100 or so were staged.
He helped translate 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 operas into French (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...
, 1861, Rienzi
Rienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
, 1869, Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
1870 and Der fliegende Holländer
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....
, 1872). Other translations include I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...
, Oberon
Oberon (opera)
Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath is a 3-act romantic opera in English with spoken dialogue and music by Carl Maria von Weber. The libretto by James Robinson Planche was based on a German poem, Oberon, by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon de Bordeaux, a French...
, Abu Hassan
Abu Hassan
Abu Hassan is a comic opera in one act by Carl Maria von Weber to a German libretto by Franz Hiemer, based on a story in One Thousand and One Nights...
, Die Zauberflöte
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, and Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
, Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
and Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
. Wagner and Verdi esteemed highly the quality of his translations, and he assisted Verdi over the revision of Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
in 1882–83. From a different era, Nuitter's translation of La Prière du matin et du soir by Emilio de' Cavalieri
Emilio de' Cavalieri
Emilio de' Cavalieri was an Italian composer, producer, organist, diplomat, choreographer and dancer at the end of the Renaissance era. His work, along with that of other composers active in Rome, Florence and Venice, was critical in defining the beginning of the musical Baroque era...
(1600) was performed regularly at the Concerts du Conservatoire
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
during the 1870s–80s and beyond.
Archivist
Becoming involved in the archives of the Paris OperaPalais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
in 1863, he became official archivist there three years later, and ended his career in law (he had given legal advice to Offenbach in a dispute with the manager of the Bouffes-Parisiens prior to the 1864 premiere of La belle Hélène
La belle Hélène
La belle Hélène , opéra bouffe in three acts, is an operetta by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
).
His archival work was extremely important in cataloguing the existing library, rescuing documents from destruction, and acquiring autograph documents and journals (sometimes at his own expense) for the collection. Acquisitions by Nuitter included an important collection of theatre books by Joseph de Filippi and around 900 opera librettos from a former director of the théâtre, Nestor Roqueplan.
His influence on the expansion of the archive was impressive. In 1861, there were 350 volumes; by the end of 1862 there were 1,076, and in 1882 7,807. He ensured that their importance was taken in to account when the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
opened in 1875.
Selected stage works by Nuitter (often in collaboration)
- Bavard et BavardeLes bavardsLes bavards is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, with a French libretto by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter based on a story originally by Cervantes, ‘Los dos habladores’.-Performance history:...
(1862, Offenbach) - Il signor FagottoIl signor FagottoIl signor Fagotto is a one-act opérette by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter and Étienne Tréfeu, first performed in 1863...
(1863, Offenbach) - Les bavardsLes bavardsLes bavards is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, with a French libretto by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter based on a story originally by Cervantes, ‘Los dos habladores’.-Performance history:...
(1863, Offenbach) - Les fées du Rhin (1864, Offenbach)
- Une fantasia (1865, Hervé)
- La source (1866, Delibes and MinkusLudwig MinkusLudwig Minkus a.k.a. Léon Fyodorovich Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.Minkus is most noted for the music he composed while serving as Ballet Composer of the St...
— ballet)
- Vert-Vert (1869, Offenbach)
- Coppélia (1870, Delibes — ballet)
- Boule de neige (1871, Offenbach)
- Whittington (1874, Offenbach)
- Maître PéronillaMaître PéronillaMaître Péronilla is an opéra bouffe in three acts of 1878 with music by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was by the composer with Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter and Paul Ferrier....
(1878, Offenbach) - Le coeur et la main (1882, Lecocq)
- Hellé (1896, Duvernoy)