Émile Louis Fortuné Pessard (29 May 1843 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...

 - 10 February 1917 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...

) was a French composer.

He studied at the Paris Conservatoire where he won 1st prize in Harmony. In 1866 he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 Dalila which was performed at the Paris Opera on February 21, 1867. From 1878 to 1880 he was inspector of singing at Paris Schools, in 1881 he became professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatory. After 1895 he was a critic. He composed many comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

s and operettas, as well as masses

Mass (music)

The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...

.

Works

• Dalila (cantata, 1866)
• La Cruche cassée (comic opera in 1 act, libretto by Hyppolite Lucas and Emile Abraham, premiered on February 21, 1870 at the Théâtre de l'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...
  
   in Paris)
• Don Quichotte (opera, premiered on February 13, 1874, at the Salle Erard in Paris)
• Le Char (opera, premiered on January 18, 1878, at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris)
• Le Capitaine Fracasse (opera, premiered on July 2, 1878 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris)
• Tabarin (opera, premiered on January 12, 1885, at the Théâtre de l'Opéra
  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...
  
   in Paris)
• Tartarin sur les Alpes (comic opera, premiered on November 17, 1888, at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris)
• Les Folies amoureuses (comic opera, premiered on April 15, 1891 at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris)
• Une Nuit de Noël (opera, premiered in 1893 at the Ambigu
  Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique
  The theatre was rebuilt to plans by the architects Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Jean-François-Joseph Lecointe on the boulevard Saint-Martin, at the corner of rue de Bondy...
  
   in Paris)
• Mam'zelle Carabin (comic opera, premiered on November 3, 1893 at the Bouffes-Parisiens
  Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens
  The Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens is a Parisian theatre which was founded in 1855 by the composer Jacques Offenbach for the performance of opéra bouffe and operetta. The current theatre is located in the 2nd arrondissement at 4 rue Monsigny with an entrance at the back at 65 Passage Choiseul. In...
  
  , Salle Choiseul, in Paris)
• Le Muet (opera in 1 act, 1894)
• La Dame de trèfle (comic opera, premiered on May 13, 1898 at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Salle Choiseul, in Paris)
• L'Armée des vierges (comic opera in 3 acts, premiered on October 15, 1902, at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Salle Choiseul, in Paris)
• L'Epave (comic opera in 1 act, premiered on February 17, 1903, at the Bouffes-Parisiens, Salle Choiseul, in Paris)

Sources

• The Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, p. 332, 1940, Blue Ribbon Books, Inc. (Original (c) 1903)
• Emile Pessard's Works