Léo Delibes

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"Delibes" redirects here. For others with the surname, see Delibes (surname).

Middle aged white man with short, dark hair and a bushy beard
Delibes in 1875

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (French:

ballets and operas. His works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883), which includes the well-known "Flower Duet
".

Born into a musical family, Delibes enrolled at France's foremost music academy, the

opérettes in the 1850s and 1860s, while also serving as a church organist, Delibes achieved public recognition for his music for the ballet La Source in 1866. His later ballets Coppélia and Sylvia were key works in the development of modern ballet, giving the music much greater importance than previously. He composed a small number of mélodies
, some of which are still performed frequently.

Delibes had several attempts at writing more serious operas, and achieved a considerable critical and commercial success in 1883 with Lakmé. In his later years he joined the faculty of the Conservatoire, teaching composition. He died at his home in Paris at the age of 54. Coppélia and Sylvia remain core works in the international ballet repertoire, and Lakmé is revived from time to time in opera houses.

Life and career

Early years

Delibes was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, now part of

Paris Conservatoire.[3] He studied first with Antoine-Jules Tariot (music theory), and then with Félix Le Couppey (piano), François Benoist (organ), François Bazin (harmony) and, at eighteen, Adolphe Adam (composition).[3][4]

As a boy, Delibes had an unusually fine singing voice;

Folies-Nouvelles".[2]

Composer

In 1856 Delibes' first stage work was premiered at the Folies-Nouvelles: Deux sous de charbon (Two

Bouffes-Parisiens, the theatre run by Jacques Offenbach, including Deux vieilles gardes ("Two Old Guards"), Delibes's second opera, which enjoyed enormous success, attributable in Macdonald's view to the composer's gift for "witty melody and lightness of touch".[2]

La Source, 1866

In addition to composing, Delibes earned a living as a critic (briefly in 1858); inspector of school music; and accompanist and later chorus master at the Opéra (from 1862 or 1863).

musicologist and critic Adolphe Jullien, Delibes "displayed such a wealth of melody as a composer of ballet music" that Minkus was "completely eclipsed".[9] Delibes was immediately invited to compose a waltz-divertissement called Le Pas de Fleurs to be introduced into the ballet of his former teacher Adam, Le Corsaire, for a revival in 1867.[9] The piece was later incorporated into Delibes' music for La Source when it was revived.[10]

In 1869 Delibes composed his last opérette, La Cour du roi Pétaud, for the Variétés.[11] The following year he came to wider public notice with his score for the ballet Coppélia, first performed at the Opéra in May 1870. It was an immediate success, and has remained among the most popular works in the classical ballet repertoire.[2] The following year he resigned from the musical staff of the Opéra and devoted himself wholly to composition. In that year he married Léontine Estelle Denain.[12]

Not wishing to be typecast as a ballet composer, Delibes next turned to

Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur.[3]

Despite the success of his two ballets, Delibes was still anxious to write a serious vocal work, and composed a grand scena, La Mort d'Orphée (The Death of Orpheus), given at the Trocadéro Concerts in 1878 during the Exposition Universelle.[15] He followed that with a serious opera, Jean de Nivelle, a medieval patriotic romance, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1880. Reviewers found the piece too episodic but praised the composer for "the rare and precise quality" of his melodies and "the delicate style in his writing" for the public. The Parisian critic for The Era considered it "the best opera, the one most likely to attain a world-wide popularity, since Bizet's ...Carmen", premiered five years previously.[16] The piece ran for more than a hundred performances,[3] and was revived in Paris in 1908 but has not (in 2020) been staged there since then.[17]

Later years

In 1881 Delibes succeeded

Le Roi s'amuse at the Comédie-Française, consisting of a suite of pastiche medieval dances for orchestra ("Six airs de danse dans le style ancien") and a song with mandolin accompaniment ("Quand Bourbon vit Marseille").[18]

Delibes' opera Lakmé was premiered at the Opéra-Comique on 14 April 1883. Léon Carvalho, the manager, was not known for extravagance in his productions, but for this opera he surprised his audiences by the lavish staging.[19] Macdonald writes:

Its success was lasting; the oriental colour, the superb part for the title role, a well-constructed libretto and the real charm of the music, all contributed to a work on which, with the ballets, Delibes' fame has rested.[2]

Cimetière de Montmartre

Lakmé was quickly taken up by opera houses across Europe, and productions followed in London (1885) and New York (1886); reviews of the American production were highly enthusiastic; those of the British production were less so, but in both cities it prospered at the box-office.[20][21]

Delibes' last years were financially comfortable and socially secure. In 1884 he was elected to the

Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.[3]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Léo Delibes

In Macdonald's view, Delibes' early compositions are clearly influenced by and in the tradition of Boieldieu, Hérold and Adam, Delibes' composition teacher at the Conservatoire, from whom he had the example of "a sparkling operetta style". Later, consciously seeking to move from light popular works into a more elevated genre, his works show the influence of Meyerbeer and Gounod, as well as the slightly younger Bizet and Lalo. Macdonald observes that in notices of Delibes' early music the same terms frequently recur: "wit, charm, elegance, grace, colour, lightness".[2] The Musical World said of him, "If not the greatest French composer of his day, Delibes was the most characteristically French, and it can hardly be said that in his own line he leaves any successor of equal excellence".[15]

Opera

Le Roi l'a dit is a light opera in which "elaborate vocal ensembles and witty pastiche play a major part" (Macdonald). The more serious Jean de Nivelle, one of the works showing the influence of Meyerbeer and Lalo, is generally weightier in tone, with some lapses into the composer's lighter style in such pieces as the Act III couplets, "Moi! j'aime le bruit de bataille".[2] The chorus "Nous sommes les reines d'un jour" in the Act I finale continually switches between 2
4 and 3
4 with what Macdonald calls "a modal melody of striking originality".[2]

Lakmé, Act I, 1883

Lakmé – which

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ranks as Delibes' masterpiece, even above Coppelia and Sylvia – shows the influence of Bizet, with echoes of Carmen and Les pêcheurs de perles in the harmonic techniques and subtleties of orchestration.[2] The opera is sometimes seen as a vehicle for a star soprano,[n 3] but Macdonald writes that the two principal male characters, Nilakantha and Gérald, are strongly drawn, and the music is "melodic, picturesque and theatrically strong". Macdonald expresses reservations about the dramatic recitative, which he finds tending to the conventional;[2] the work was originally conceived as an opéra-comique with spoken dialogue, and the recitatives were an afterthought.[24] Lakmé remains on the fringes of the operatic repertoire. It was produced at the Opéra-Comique in 1995, starring Natalie Dessay,[25][26] but has not been staged by the Metropolitan Opera since 1947,[27] or at the Royal Opera House since 1910.[28] Operabase and Les Archives du spectacle record details of occasional productions in Europe and elsewhere.[26][29] The work was staged by the Seattle Opera in 1967 with Joan Sutherland in the title role, and in 2000 with Harolyn Blackwell,[30] and by the New York City Opera in 1984.[31]

Kassya, complete except for the orchestration when Delibes died, was edited and orchestrated by Jules Massenet, whose skilful work was praised by reviewers.[32] It had its premiere two years after Delibes' death, and was respectfully received, but the general view was that it showed the composer's creative gifts in decline.[32] It ran for twelve performances.[33] Macdonald finds points to praise: the oriental inflections in the music, the vocal writing, and the "fine close to the first scene of Act 3, with snow falling on the deserted stage".[2]

Ballet

Divertissement - Pizzicato
Divertissement - Pizzicato from Sylvia — 3081 KB
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The first few bars of Pizzicato from Sylvia

Influenced by Adam, Coppélia makes extensive use of leitmotifs for character and mood, and contains some vivid musical scene-painting.

czardas, jig and mazurka, continually interspersed with waltz rhythms.[35]
In the opinion of several critics, the score of Sylvia surpasses that of Coppélia.
Tchaikovsky
was greatly impressed by it, calling Sylvia:

The first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the main, but the sole interest. What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic and harmonic richness. I was ashamed. If I had known this music earlier, then of course I would not have written Swan Lake.[36]

Carl Van Vechten shared Tchaikovsky's view that Delibes revolutionised ballet composition: "Before he began to compose his ballets, music for dancing, for the most part, consisted of tinkle-tinkle melodies with marked rhythm." In Van Vechten's view, Delibes revolutionised ballet music by introducing in his scores "a symphonic element, a wealth of graceful melody, and a richness of harmonic fibre, based, it is safe to hazard, on a healthy distaste for routine". Van Vechten considers Delibes' scores to be the forerunners of 20th-century ballets such as Debussy's Jeux, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Stravinsky's Petrouchka.[37]

After Sylvia, Delibes's only composition for dance was a suite of six dances for the Comédie-française production of Le Roi s'amuse, The dances, in a pastiche of antique style, show a keen ear for the nuances of period character in Goodwin's view. They are not often played in concert and are more familiar in recordings.[35]

Mélodies

The pianist and musical scholar Graham Johnson quotes the musicologist Fritz Noske's view that Delibes' songs derive from the chansonnette, "lighter and more entertaining than the romance, and less susceptible to the German influence of the lied". In his songs, Delibes shares with Bizet "a natural feeling for the theatre, and an ability to spin local colour", as in his chanson espagnole "Les filles de Cadix". Of other early songs, Johnson describes "Eclogue" and "Bonjour, Suzon" as "charm[ing] us with their unpretentious gaiety and delicacy, as well as their economy of means". Some of the songs evoke the period style of the 16th century, such as "Avril", "Chanson de l'oiseleur" and "Myrto", the last of which is a pre-echo of mélodies by Gabriel Fauré. Johnson finds Delibes more suited to reflective than to passionate sentiments, and, in general, better in more of his earlier songs than his later. He brackets Delibes with his junior contemporary Reynaldo Hahn as songwriters – "charmers both [with] a similarly eighteenth-century idea of the role of music in refined society: the unashamed giving of pleasure".[38]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

  1. ^ Delibes made the piano reduction of the orchestra part for the vocal score of Gounod's Faust in 1859.[5] A theory put forward in 1991 that Delibes wrote the ballet music for the opera when it was revised in 1869[6] has not been supported in subsequent studies of Gounod by Yves Bruley (2015) and Vincent Giroud (2019).[7]
  2. ^ The obituary in Le Figaro gives the earlier date; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the later.[3][9]
  3. ^ Productions of Lakme in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries were often mounted for stars including Luisa Tetrazzini and Lily Pons.[22][23]

References

  1. ^ Curzon, p. 7
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Macdonald, Hugh. "Delibes, (Clément Philibert) Léo", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 12 January 2020
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Darcours, Charles. "Léo Delibes", Le Figaro, 17 January 1891, p. 1 (in French)
  4. ^ a b c Curzon, p. 9
  5. ^ Giroud, p. 266
  6. ^ Johnson, E. "Gounod or Delibes? – authorship of the ballet music in Faust", Opera, March 1991, p. 276
  7. ^ Bruley, pp. 170–176; and Giroud, p. 270
  8. ^ Curzon, p. 13
  9. ^ a b c d Jullien, p. 687
  10. OCLC 904403063
  11. ^ Curzon, p. 88
  12. ^ Curzon, p. 118
  13. ^ Johnson, p. 129; and Curzon, p. 53
  14. ^ "Le Roi l'a dit", The Era, 15 December 1894, p. 7; and "Le Roi l'a dit", Opera News, June 2016
  15. ^ a b "Leo Delibes", The Musical World, 24 January 1891, pp. 69–70
  16. ^ "The Drama in Paris", The Era, 14 March 1880, p. 7
  17. ^ Pottinger, Mark. "Léo Delibes, Jean de Nivelle: Dossier de presse parisienne", Music and Letters, August 2008, pp. 434–435 (subscription required)
  18. ^ Curzon, pp. 175–176
  19. ^ "'Lakme' in Paris", The Era, 21 April 1881, p. 7
  20. ^ "Lakmé at the Gaiety", The Musical World, 13 June 1885, p. 364
  21. ^ "'Lakmé' in New York", The Orchestra Musical Review, 27 March 1886, p. 620
  22. ^ Holden, p. 212
  23. ^ "Revival of 'Lakmé'", The Musical Times, July 1910, p. 445; and "Lily Pons in 'Lakmé", New York Times, 18 December 1942
  24. ^ "Waifs", The Musical World, 4 August 1883, p. 486
  25. ^ Stevens, David. "Picture Book Lakmé, New York Times, 22 February 1995
  26. ^ a b "Lakmé", Les Archives du spectacle. Retrieved 14 January 2020
  27. ^ "Archives", Metropolitan Opera House. Retrieved 14 January 2020
  28. ^ "Lakme", Royal Opera House Performance Database. Retrieved 14 January 2020
  29. ^ "Lakmé", Operabase. Retrieved 14 January 2020
  30. ^ "Lakmé", Seattle Opera. Retrieved 14 January 2020
  31. ^ Crutchfield, Will. Is it Time Once More for 'Lakme'?", New York Times 16 September 1984
  32. ^ a b "The Drama in Paris", The Era, 1 April 1893, p. 9; and Noël and Stoullig, p. 110–111
  33. ^ Noël and Stoullig, p. 138
  34. ^ a b Craine, Debra and Judith Mackrell. "Delibes, Clément Philibert Léo", The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, Oxford University Press, 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2020 (subscription required)
  35. ^ a b c d Goodwin, Noël. "Delibes, Léo", The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 14 January 2020 (subscription required)
  36. ^ Quoted in Bullock, p. 67
  37. JSTOR 737861
    .
  38. ^ Johnson, pp. 129–130

Sources

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Léo Delibes.

External links

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