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Adolphe Adam

May 14, 2023

Adolphe Charles Adam (French: [adɔlf adɑ̃]; 24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856) was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsaire (1856), his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836) and Si j'étais roi (1852) and his Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" (Midnight, Christians, 1844, known in English as "O Holy Night").

Adam in 1840

Adam was the son of a well-known composer and pianist, but his father did not wish him to pursue a musical career. Adam defied his father, and his many operas and ballets earned him a good living until he lost all his money in 1848 in a disastrous bid to open a new opera house in Paris in competition with the Opéra and Opéra-Comique. He recovered, and extended his activities to journalism and teaching. He was appointed as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, France's principal music academy.

Together with his older contemporary Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien Boieldieu, Adam is credited with creating the French form of opera.

Life and career

Early years

 
Adam's father, Louis, 1834

Adam was born in Paris on 24 July 1803, the elder of the two children, both sons, of (Jean) Louis Adam and his third wife, Élisa, née Coste. She was the daughter of a prominent physician, and was a former pupil of her husband, a well-known composer, pianist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire.[1] Louis Adam gave his son lessons, but the boy was reluctant to learn even the basics of musical theory, and instead played fluently by ear:

I loved music, but I didn't want to learn it. I would sit quiet for hours, listening to my father play the piano, and as soon as I was alone I tapped on the instrument without knowing my notes. I knew without realising it how to find the harmonies. I didn't want to do scales or read music; I always improvised.[2]

He later said that he never became a fluent sight-reader of a score. His mother concluded that her son needed a rigorous education, and he was sent to a boarding school, the Hix institute in the Champs-Élysées. It had a high reputation both academically and musically: his elder contemporary (and pupil of Louis Adam) Ferdinand Hérold had been educated there,[3] and the music master was Henry Lemoine, another of Louis' former students. Adolphe was not an academic child, and recalled in his memoirs how he had recoiled from the study of Latin, which he found "barbaric".[4] The fall of the French Empire in 1814–15, and the ensuing economic problems badly affected Louis Adam's income, and to save money his son was sent to a less expensive school. The staff there were capable, but Adam remained as indifferent to musical theory as to Latin.[5]

 
Adam's professor of composition, Adrien Boieldieu

At the age of 17 Adam enrolled at the Conservatoire, where he studied the organ with François Benoist, counterpoint with Anton Reicha and composition with Adrien Boieldieu. Adam's biographer Elizabeth Forbes calls Boieldieu the chief architect of Adam's musical development.[6] He set his student exercises that taught him to compose sustained melodies without showy modulations and other technical devices.[7] Adam's father did not want his son to become a professional composer: he would have preferred him to pursue a commercial or academic career, and although he gave Adam board and lodging he refused to subsidise any musical activities.[8] By the age of 20 Adam was contributing songs to the Paris vaudeville theatres, writing what he later called "bad romances and worse piano pieces", and giving music lessons.[9]

Duchaume, timpanist and chorus master of the new Théâtre du Gymnase, offered Adam an unpaid post playing the triangle in the orchestra. Adam said that as he would have paid to be allowed to join he was happy to serve without a salary, but he was quickly promoted to a well paid position:

My entry to the Gymnase was an event in my life. I made acquaintances and friendships with actors and writers; that was, in a word, my starting point. Duchaume died, and I succeeded him as timpanist and chorus master, at a salary of six hundred francs a year. It was a fortune. I no longer gave thirty-sous lessons, and I wrote a little less trashy music.[10]

In 1824 Adam entered the Conservatoire's most important musical competition, the Prix de Rome. He gained an honourable mention, and the following year, at his second attempt, he won the second prize. Forbes writes that Adam derived more benefit from helping Boieldieu with the preparation of his opera La Dame blanche, produced at the Opéra-Comique in December 1825. Adam's piano transcriptions of themes from the opera were published in 1826 and made him enough money to tour the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland in summer 1826 with a family friend, Sébastien Guillié. In Geneva he met the librettist Eugène Scribe, with whom he later collaborated on nine stage works.[6]

Early successes

 
Le Mal du pays, Adam's first opera, 1827

During 1824–1827 Adam wrote or arranged the music for several one-act vaudevilles given at the Gymnase and the Théâtre du Vaudeville, including four written by Scribe as sole or co-author. In late 1827 Scribe provided the text for Adam's first opera, a one-act comic piece, Le Mal du pays, ou La Batelière de Brientz (Homesickness, or the Bargewoman of Brientz), comprising an overture and eleven numbers; it was produced at the Gymnase on 28 December 1827. A little over a year later, in February 1829, Adam's second one-act opera, Pierre et Catherine was given in a double bill at the Opéra-Comique with Auber and Scribe's La Fiancée, and ran for more than 80 performances.[6]

Seven months after the premiere of Pierre et Catherine Adam married Sara Lescot, a member of the chorus at the Vaudeville. Adam's biographer Arthur Pougin describes the marriage as "an important and unfortunate event for him".[11] By Pougin's account, Lescot manoeuvred Adam into marriage, and on his side – and later hers also – it was a loveless union; they separated in 1835.[12] Their only child, Léopold-Adrien, born in 1832, killed himself in 1851.[13]

Adam's first full length operas were premiered in 1829: Le jeune propriétaire et le vieux fermier and Danilowa, opéras comiques given at the Théâtre des Nouveautés and the Opéra-Comique respectively. Danilowa ran well until Parisian life was disrupted by the July Revolution. That, and an outbreak of cholera, led Adam to move to London; this was at the suggestion of his brother-in-law, Pierre François Laporte, manager of the King's Theatre, Haymarket. In 1832 Laporte leased the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and in October, as an afterpiece to The Merchant of Venice, he presented James Planché's His First Campaign, a "Military Spectacle" about the Duke of Marlborough, with music by Adam.[14] The piece was received with "loud and general plaudits",[15] but The Dark Diamond, a historical melodrama in three acts, which followed on 5 November, failed to repeat its success, and Adam went home to Paris in December. He returned briefly to London when his ballet Faust was presented at the King's Theatre in February and March 1833.[6]

Peak career

 
Carlotta Grisi in the title role of Giselle, 1841

In 1834 Adam had one of his greatest popular successes with Le chalet, at the Opéra-Comique. This was a one-act opéra comique with words by Scribe and Mélesville based on Goethe's Jery und Bätely. It was given more than 1000 times in Paris over the next four decades.[6] In May 1836 Adam was appointed as a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, later promoted to officer of the order.[16] His first work for the Paris Opéra was a ballet, La fille du Danube, introduced by Marie Taglioni in September 1836.[6] Within days of the premiere of that piece, his three-act opéra comique Le postillon de Lonjumeau opened successfully at the Opéra-Comique. It was the composer's greatest operatic success internationally, quickly taken up by foreign managements and seen in London in 1837 and New York in 1840.[17]

During 1838 and 1839 Adam composed the music for Les Mohicans, a ballet for the Opéra, and four operas for the Opéra-Comique, and in September 1839 he left Paris for St Petersburg. His ballet for Taglioni, L'Écumeur de mer (The Pirate) was given before the imperial court in February 1840, and two of his operas were staged. He left Russia for Paris at the end of March, stopping off in Berlin, where he wrote an opera-ballet, Die Hamadryaden (The Tree Nymphs), which he conducted at the Court Opera in April 1840.[6]

Adam's next substantial work was the composition by which he has become best known: the ballet Giselle.[6][18] Based on Heinrich Heine's version of an old tale, the ballet premiered at the Opéra on 28 June 1841 with Carlotta Grisi in the title role. Adam continued his prolific output, including his first grand opera, Richard en Palestine, which was produced at the Opéra in 1844 but aroused little interest.[6] In that year he was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.[19]

Financial disaster

In 1845 François-Louis Crosnier, director of the Opéra-Comique, resigned and was succeeded by Alexandre Basset. Basset soon fell out with Adam and told him that as long as he was director, Adam's works would never be performed at the Opéra-Comique.[20] Early in 1847 a theatre in the Boulevard du Temple became available, and Adam, in partnership with the actor Achille Mirecour, took it over, rechristening it the Opéra-National. The cost of refurbishing the theatre was enormous, and in addition to investing his own money, Adam raised large sums in loans.[20] The new opera house opened in November 1847, but from the outset its prospects looked doubtful. Financial and artistic performance alike were poor, and the 1848 Revolution was the final blow to the enterprise. The theatres were closed by the incoming régime, and when they were permitted to re-open, there was little demand for tickets at Adam's opera house, which closed on 28 March 1848, after the production of nine operas during its four months of existence, leaving him financially ruined.[21]

Adam assigned the royalties from his earlier works to help pay off his debts, and like many other French composers in need of money he turned to journalism to earn extra income.[n 1] He contributed reviews and articles to Le Constitutionnel and the Assemblée nationale. He also became a teacher, accepting the post of professor of composition at the Conservatoire, where his students included Léo Delibes.[23] Meanwhile, Basset having left the Opéra-Comique at the time of the revolution, Adam was able to return to what Forbes calls his spiritual home under its new director, Émile Perrin.[6]

Last years

 
Mlle Meyer as the Queen in Giralda, 1850

In July 1850 Giralda, ou La nouvelle psyché – one of Adam's best operas in Forbes's view – was given at the Opéra-Comique. In 1851 his estranged wife died, and Adam married the singer Chérie-Louise Couraud (1817–1880), with whom he lived for his remaining years.[24] For the Théâtre-Lyrique, the revived incarnation of his failed Opéra-National, Adam wrote the successful Si j'étais roi, first given in September 1852. In that year he produced six new works, enabling him to clear all his debts.[6]

During the last three years of his life Adam continued to compose prolifically. His late works include what Forbes rates as one of his finest ballets, Le Corsaire, based on a poem by Byron; it was presented at the Opéra in January 1856, after a year's preparation. His final stage work, the one-act opérette Les Pantins de Violette (Violette's Puppets) was given at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens on 29 April 1856. Four nights later Adam died in his sleep, at the age of 52.[6] He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.[25]

Works

See also: List of operas by Adolphe Adam and List of ballets by Adolphe Adam

In Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Forbes writes that much of Adam's prolific output was ephemeral. This includes the many popular numbers he wrote for vaudevilles in his early years, a large number of piano arrangements, transcriptions and potpourris of favourite operatic arias, and numerous light songs and ballads. Nonetheless, "there remain several operas and ballets that are not merely delightful examples of their kind, but are also scores full of genuine inspiration". In this category Forbes includes Le chalet (which incorporates music from the cantata he wrote for the 1825 Prix de Rome competition) which she ranks with Adam's best works for its freshness of invention.[6] For the musicologist Theodore Baker, Adam ranks with Auber and Boieldieu as one of the creators of French opera, thanks to the expressive power of his melodic material and his keen sense of dramatic development.[26]

 
Le postillon de Lonjumeau, 1836

In France, during Adam's lifetime and beyond, Le chalet was his most popular opera. In other countries the favourite was Le postillon de Lonjumeau. In Germany in particular the opera was celebrated for its tenor aria "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" (given in translation as "Freunde, vernehmet die Geschichte")[n 2], with its demanding high D. Grove comments that the opera has distinctive and well characterised roles and a sense of theatre, found in all Adam's operas. Of the later operas, Grove singles out Giralda and Si j'étais roi as "the most stylish, tuneful and accomplished".[6]

Although he was a prolific composer of opera, Adam wrote ballet music even more fluently. He commented that it was fun, rather than work.[27][n 3] Giselle is the best known; Baker calls it a major work in the history of choreography, which continues to be performed with the same success.[26] Forbes comments that although Giselle has the advantage of a particularly memorable plot, La jolie fille de Gand, La filleule des fées and Le corsaire are of equal quality musically.[6]

Little of Adam's religious music has entered the regular repertory, with the exception of his Cantique de Noël, "Minuit, chrétiens!", known in English as "O Holy Night".[18]

Adam's memoirs were published posthumously, in two volumes: Souvenirs d'un musicien (1857) and Derniers souvenirs d'un musicien (1859).[18]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

  1. ^ Berlioz, Fauré, Messager, Dukas and Debussy all practised journalism during their careers.[22]
  2. ^ "Friends, hear the story"
  3. ^ "On ne travaille plus, on s'amuse".[27]

References

  1. ^ Pougin (1877), pp. 22–23
  2. ^ Quoted in Lavignac, p. 3495
  3. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 24 and (1906), p. 7
  4. ^ Adam, p. IX
  5. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 30
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Forbes, Elizabeth. "Adam, Adolphe (Charles)", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 11 September 2021 (subscription required)
  7. ^ Pougin (1877), pp. 31–32
  8. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 35
  9. ^ Adam, p. XVI
  10. ^ Adam, pp. XVI–XVII
  11. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 63
  12. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 106
  13. ^ Lavignac, p. 3496; and "Notoriété après décès de Léopold-Adrien Adam", France Archives. Retrieved 11 September 2021
  14. ^ "Covent Garden Theatre", The Sun, 24 September 1832, p. 1; and "Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden", Morning Herald, 26 September 1832, p. 2
  15. ^ "The Theatres", English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post, 2 October 1832, p. 4
  16. ^ Pougin (1877), pp. 113 and 179
  17. ^ Harewood, p. 755
  18. ^ a b c Slonimsky et al, p. 13
  19. ^ Pougin (1877), p. 179
  20. ^ a b Walsh, pp. 2–4
  21. ^ Walsh, pp. 4 and 359
  22. ^ Macdonald, Hugh. "Berlioz, (Louis-)Hector"; Nectoux, Jean-Michel. "Fauré, Gabriel"; Wagstaff, John, and Andrew Lamb. "Messager, André"; Schwartz, Manuela, and G.W. Hopkins. "Dukas, Paul"; and Lesure, François, and Roy Howat "Debussy, (Achille-)Claude", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 12 September 2021 (subscription required)
  23. ^ Curzon, p. 9
  24. ^ "Chérie Couraud", Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 11 September 2021
  25. ^ "Adam, Adolphe", Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs. Retrieved 15 September 2021
  26. ^ a b Baker, p. 14
  27. ^ a b Pougin (1877), p. 119

Sources

  • Adam, Adolphe (1857). Souvenirs d'un musicien (in French). Paris: Lévy frères. OCLC 977584672.
  • Baker, Theodore (1995). Dictionnaire biographique des musiciens (in French). Paris: Laffont. ISBN 978-2-22-106787-1.
  • Curzon, Henri de (1926). Léo Delibes. Sa vie et ses oeures (1836-1892) (in French). Paris: Legouix. OCLC 1316090.
  • Harewood, Earl of (1979). Kobbé's Complete Opera Book (ninth ed.). London: Putman. OCLC 312154493.
  • Lavignac, Albert (1913). Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire (in French). Paris: Delagrave. OCLC 1044655796.
  • Pougin, Arthur (1877). Adolphe Adam: Sa vie, sa carrière, ses mémoires artistiques (in French). Paris: Charpentier. OCLC 238803777.
  • Pougin, Arthur (1906). Herold. Les Musiciens célèbres (in French). Paris: H. Laurens. OCLC 1994688.
  • Slonimsky, Nicholas; Kuhn, Laura; McIntire, Dennis (2001). "Adam, Adolphe". In Laura Kuhn (ed.). Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th ed.). New York: Schirmer. ISBN 978-0-02-866091-2.
  • Walsh, T. J. (1981). Second Empire Opera: The Théâtre Lyrique, Paris 1851–1870. London: Calder. ISBN 978-0-7145-3659-0.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Adolphe Adam.
 
"O Holy Night" (piano solo, run time 4:01)
"O Holy Night" (another piano solo, run time 1:11)
Giselle/Act I: Introduction (run time 1:17)
Performed by Andrew Mogrelia &
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Courtesy of NAXOS
Problems playing these files? See media help.

May 14, 2023
adolphe, adam, adolphe, charles, adam, french, adɔlf, adɑ, july, 1803, 1856, french, composer, teacher, music, critic, prolific, composer, theatre, best, known, today, ballets, giselle, 1841, corsaire, 1856, operas, postillon, lonjumeau, 1836, étais, 1852, chr. Adolphe Charles Adam French adɔlf adɑ 24 July 1803 3 May 1856 was a French composer teacher and music critic A prolific composer for the theatre he is best known today for his ballets Giselle 1841 and Le corsaire 1856 his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau 1836 and Si j etais roi 1852 and his Christmas carol Minuit chretiens Midnight Christians 1844 known in English as O Holy Night Adam in 1840 Adam was the son of a well known composer and pianist but his father did not wish him to pursue a musical career Adam defied his father and his many operas and ballets earned him a good living until he lost all his money in 1848 in a disastrous bid to open a new opera house in Paris in competition with the Opera and Opera Comique He recovered and extended his activities to journalism and teaching He was appointed as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire France s principal music academy Together with his older contemporary Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien Boieldieu Adam is credited with creating the French form of opera Contents 1 Life and career 1 1 Early years 1 2 Early successes 1 3 Peak career 1 4 Financial disaster 1 5 Last years 2 Works 3 Notes references and sources 3 1 Notes 3 2 References 3 3 Sources 4 External linksLife and career EditEarly years Edit Adam s father Louis 1834 Adam was born in Paris on 24 July 1803 the elder of the two children both sons of Jean Louis Adam and his third wife Elisa nee Coste She was the daughter of a prominent physician and was a former pupil of her husband a well known composer pianist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire 1 Louis Adam gave his son lessons but the boy was reluctant to learn even the basics of musical theory and instead played fluently by ear I loved music but I didn t want to learn it I would sit quiet for hours listening to my father play the piano and as soon as I was alone I tapped on the instrument without knowing my notes I knew without realising it how to find the harmonies I didn t want to do scales or read music I always improvised 2 He later said that he never became a fluent sight reader of a score His mother concluded that her son needed a rigorous education and he was sent to a boarding school the Hix institute in the Champs Elysees It had a high reputation both academically and musically his elder contemporary and pupil of Louis Adam Ferdinand Herold had been educated there 3 and the music master was Henry Lemoine another of Louis former students Adolphe was not an academic child and recalled in his memoirs how he had recoiled from the study of Latin which he found barbaric 4 The fall of the French Empire in 1814 15 and the ensuing economic problems badly affected Louis Adam s income and to save money his son was sent to a less expensive school The staff there were capable but Adam remained as indifferent to musical theory as to Latin 5 Adam s professor of composition Adrien Boieldieu At the age of 17 Adam enrolled at the Conservatoire where he studied the organ with Francois Benoist counterpoint with Anton Reicha and composition with Adrien Boieldieu Adam s biographer Elizabeth Forbes calls Boieldieu the chief architect of Adam s musical development 6 He set his student exercises that taught him to compose sustained melodies without showy modulations and other technical devices 7 Adam s father did not want his son to become a professional composer he would have preferred him to pursue a commercial or academic career and although he gave Adam board and lodging he refused to subsidise any musical activities 8 By the age of 20 Adam was contributing songs to the Paris vaudeville theatres writing what he later called bad romances and worse piano pieces and giving music lessons 9 Duchaume timpanist and chorus master of the new Theatre du Gymnase offered Adam an unpaid post playing the triangle in the orchestra Adam said that as he would have paid to be allowed to join he was happy to serve without a salary but he was quickly promoted to a well paid position My entry to the Gymnase was an event in my life I made acquaintances and friendships with actors and writers that was in a word my starting point Duchaume died and I succeeded him as timpanist and chorus master at a salary of six hundred francs a year It was a fortune I no longer gave thirty sous lessons and I wrote a little less trashy music 10 In 1824 Adam entered the Conservatoire s most important musical competition the Prix de Rome He gained an honourable mention and the following year at his second attempt he won the second prize Forbes writes that Adam derived more benefit from helping Boieldieu with the preparation of his opera La Dame blanche produced at the Opera Comique in December 1825 Adam s piano transcriptions of themes from the opera were published in 1826 and made him enough money to tour the Netherlands Germany and Switzerland in summer 1826 with a family friend Sebastien Guillie In Geneva he met the librettist Eugene Scribe with whom he later collaborated on nine stage works 6 Early successes Edit Le Mal du pays Adam s first opera 1827 During 1824 1827 Adam wrote or arranged the music for several one act vaudevilles given at the Gymnase and the Theatre du Vaudeville including four written by Scribe as sole or co author In late 1827 Scribe provided the text for Adam s first opera a one act comic piece Le Mal du pays ou La Bateliere de Brientz Homesickness or the Bargewoman of Brientz comprising an overture and eleven numbers it was produced at the Gymnase on 28 December 1827 A little over a year later in February 1829 Adam s second one act opera Pierre et Catherine was given in a double bill at the Opera Comique with Auber and Scribe s La Fiancee and ran for more than 80 performances 6 Seven months after the premiere of Pierre et Catherine Adam married Sara Lescot a member of the chorus at the Vaudeville Adam s biographer Arthur Pougin describes the marriage as an important and unfortunate event for him 11 By Pougin s account Lescot manoeuvred Adam into marriage and on his side and later hers also it was a loveless union they separated in 1835 12 Their only child Leopold Adrien born in 1832 killed himself in 1851 13 Adam s first full length operas were premiered in 1829 Le jeune proprietaire et le vieux fermier and Danilowa operas comiques given at the Theatre des Nouveautes and the Opera Comique respectively Danilowa ran well until Parisian life was disrupted by the July Revolution That and an outbreak of cholera led Adam to move to London this was at the suggestion of his brother in law Pierre Francois Laporte manager of the King s Theatre Haymarket In 1832 Laporte leased the Theatre Royal Covent Garden and in October as an afterpiece to The Merchant of Venice he presented James Planche s His First Campaign a Military Spectacle about the Duke of Marlborough with music by Adam 14 The piece was received with loud and general plaudits 15 but The Dark Diamond a historical melodrama in three acts which followed on 5 November failed to repeat its success and Adam went home to Paris in December He returned briefly to London when his ballet Faust was presented at the King s Theatre in February and March 1833 6 Peak career Edit Carlotta Grisi in the title role of Giselle 1841 In 1834 Adam had one of his greatest popular successes with Le chalet at the Opera Comique This was a one act opera comique with words by Scribe and Melesville based on Goethe s Jery und Bately It was given more than 1000 times in Paris over the next four decades 6 In May 1836 Adam was appointed as a chevalier of the Legion of Honour later promoted to officer of the order 16 His first work for the Paris Opera was a ballet La fille du Danube introduced by Marie Taglioni in September 1836 6 Within days of the premiere of that piece his three act opera comique Le postillon de Lonjumeau opened successfully at the Opera Comique It was the composer s greatest operatic success internationally quickly taken up by foreign managements and seen in London in 1837 and New York in 1840 17 During 1838 and 1839 Adam composed the music for Les Mohicans a ballet for the Opera and four operas for the Opera Comique and in September 1839 he left Paris for St Petersburg His ballet for Taglioni L Ecumeur de mer The Pirate was given before the imperial court in February 1840 and two of his operas were staged He left Russia for Paris at the end of March stopping off in Berlin where he wrote an opera ballet Die Hamadryaden The Tree Nymphs which he conducted at the Court Opera in April 1840 6 Adam s next substantial work was the composition by which he has become best known the ballet Giselle 6 18 Based on Heinrich Heine s version of an old tale the ballet premiered at the Opera on 28 June 1841 with Carlotta Grisi in the title role Adam continued his prolific output including his first grand opera Richard en Palestine which was produced at the Opera in 1844 but aroused little interest 6 In that year he was elected to membership of the Academie des Beaux Arts 19 Financial disaster Edit In 1845 Francois Louis Crosnier director of the Opera Comique resigned and was succeeded by Alexandre Basset Basset soon fell out with Adam and told him that as long as he was director Adam s works would never be performed at the Opera Comique 20 Early in 1847 a theatre in the Boulevard du Temple became available and Adam in partnership with the actor Achille Mirecour took it over rechristening it the Opera National The cost of refurbishing the theatre was enormous and in addition to investing his own money Adam raised large sums in loans 20 The new opera house opened in November 1847 but from the outset its prospects looked doubtful Financial and artistic performance alike were poor and the 1848 Revolution was the final blow to the enterprise The theatres were closed by the incoming regime and when they were permitted to re open there was little demand for tickets at Adam s opera house which closed on 28 March 1848 after the production of nine operas during its four months of existence leaving him financially ruined 21 Adam assigned the royalties from his earlier works to help pay off his debts and like many other French composers in need of money he turned to journalism to earn extra income n 1 He contributed reviews and articles to Le Constitutionnel and the Assemblee nationale He also became a teacher accepting the post of professor of composition at the Conservatoire where his students included Leo Delibes 23 Meanwhile Basset having left the Opera Comique at the time of the revolution Adam was able to return to what Forbes calls his spiritual home under its new director Emile Perrin 6 Last years Edit Mlle Meyer as the Queen in Giralda 1850 In July 1850 Giralda ou La nouvelle psyche one of Adam s best operas in Forbes s view was given at the Opera Comique In 1851 his estranged wife died and Adam married the singer Cherie Louise Couraud 1817 1880 with whom he lived for his remaining years 24 For the Theatre Lyrique the revived incarnation of his failed Opera National Adam wrote the successful Si j etais roi first given in September 1852 In that year he produced six new works enabling him to clear all his debts 6 During the last three years of his life Adam continued to compose prolifically His late works include what Forbes rates as one of his finest ballets Le Corsaire based on a poem by Byron it was presented at the Opera in January 1856 after a year s preparation His final stage work the one act operette Les Pantins de Violette Violette s Puppets was given at the Theatre des Bouffes Parisiens on 29 April 1856 Four nights later Adam died in his sleep at the age of 52 6 He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery 25 Works EditSee also List of operas by Adolphe Adam and List of ballets by Adolphe Adam In Grove s Dictionary of Music and Musicians Forbes writes that much of Adam s prolific output was ephemeral This includes the many popular numbers he wrote for vaudevilles in his early years a large number of piano arrangements transcriptions and potpourris of favourite operatic arias and numerous light songs and ballads Nonetheless there remain several operas and ballets that are not merely delightful examples of their kind but are also scores full of genuine inspiration In this category Forbes includes Le chalet which incorporates music from the cantata he wrote for the 1825 Prix de Rome competition which she ranks with Adam s best works for its freshness of invention 6 For the musicologist Theodore Baker Adam ranks with Auber and Boieldieu as one of the creators of French opera thanks to the expressive power of his melodic material and his keen sense of dramatic development 26 Le postillon de Lonjumeau 1836 In France during Adam s lifetime and beyond Le chalet was his most popular opera In other countries the favourite was Le postillon de Lonjumeau In Germany in particular the opera was celebrated for its tenor aria Mes amis ecoutez l histoire given in translation as Freunde vernehmet die Geschichte n 2 with its demanding high D Grove comments that the opera has distinctive and well characterised roles and a sense of theatre found in all Adam s operas Of the later operas Grove singles out Giralda and Si j etais roi as the most stylish tuneful and accomplished 6 Although he was a prolific composer of opera Adam wrote ballet music even more fluently He commented that it was fun rather than work 27 n 3 Giselle is the best known Baker calls it a major work in the history of choreography which continues to be performed with the same success 26 Forbes comments that although Giselle has the advantage of a particularly memorable plot La jolie fille de Gand La filleule des fees and Le corsaire are of equal quality musically 6 Little of Adam s religious music has entered the regular repertory with the exception of his Cantique de Noel Minuit chretiens known in English as O Holy Night 18 Adam s memoirs were published posthumously in two volumes Souvenirs d un musicien 1857 and Derniers souvenirs d un musicien 1859 18 Notes references and sources EditNotes Edit Berlioz Faure Messager Dukas and Debussy all practised journalism during their careers 22 Friends hear the story On ne travaille plus on s amuse 27 References Edit Pougin 1877 pp 22 23 Quoted in Lavignac p 3495 Pougin 1877 p 24 and 1906 p 7 Adam p IX Pougin 1877 p 30 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Forbes Elizabeth Adam Adolphe Charles Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 2001 Retrieved 11 September 2021 subscription required Pougin 1877 pp 31 32 Pougin 1877 p 35 Adam p XVI Adam pp XVI XVII Pougin 1877 p 63 Pougin 1877 p 106 Lavignac p 3496 and Notoriete apres deces de Leopold Adrien Adam France Archives Retrieved 11 September 2021 Covent Garden Theatre The Sun 24 September 1832 p 1 and Theatre Royal Covent Garden Morning Herald 26 September 1832 p 2 The Theatres English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post 2 October 1832 p 4 Pougin 1877 pp 113 and 179 Harewood p 755 a b c Slonimsky et al p 13 Pougin 1877 p 179 a b Walsh pp 2 4 Walsh pp 4 and 359 Macdonald Hugh Berlioz Louis Hector Nectoux Jean Michel Faure Gabriel Wagstaff John and Andrew Lamb Messager Andre Schwartz Manuela and G W Hopkins Dukas Paul and Lesure Francois and Roy Howat Debussy Achille Claude Grove Music Online Oxford University Press Retrieved 12 September 2021 subscription required Curzon p 9 Cherie Couraud Bibliotheque nationale de France Retrieved 11 September 2021 Adam Adolphe Cimetieres de France et d ailleurs Retrieved 15 September 2021 a b Baker p 14 a b Pougin 1877 p 119 Sources Edit Adam Adolphe 1857 Souvenirs d un musicien in French Paris Levy freres OCLC 977584672 Baker Theodore 1995 Dictionnaire biographique des musiciens in French Paris Laffont ISBN 978 2 22 106787 1 Curzon Henri de 1926 Leo Delibes Sa vie et ses oeures 1836 1892 in French Paris Legouix OCLC 1316090 Harewood Earl of 1979 Kobbe s Complete Opera Book ninth ed London Putman OCLC 312154493 Lavignac Albert 1913 Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire in French Paris Delagrave OCLC 1044655796 Pougin Arthur 1877 Adolphe Adam Sa vie sa carriere ses memoires artistiques in French Paris Charpentier OCLC 238803777 Pougin Arthur 1906 Herold Les Musiciens celebres in French Paris H Laurens OCLC 1994688 Slonimsky Nicholas Kuhn Laura McIntire Dennis 2001 Adam Adolphe In Laura Kuhn ed Baker s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians 8th ed New York Schirmer ISBN 978 0 02 866091 2 Walsh T J 1981 Second Empire Opera The Theatre Lyrique Paris 1851 1870 London Calder ISBN 978 0 7145 3659 0 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Adolphe Adam O Holy Night piano solo run time 4 01 source source O Holy Night another piano solo run time 1 11 source source Giselle Act I Introduction run time 1 17 source source Performed by Andrew Mogrelia amp Slovak Radio Symphony OrchestraCourtesy of NAXOS Problems playing these files See media help Works by Adolphe Adam at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Adolphe Adam at Internet Archive Works by Adolphe Adam at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Creative Flute free sheet music by Adolphe Adam Free scores by Adam at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Free scores by Adolphe Adam in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki Adolphe Adam at AllMusic Adolphe Adam s works at the Mutopia Project Portals Classical music Opera France Biography Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Adolphe Adam amp oldid 1134157849, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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