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6 unusual facts about Théâtre Lyrique


Aimé Maillart

Les dragons de Villars premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique; it was also popular in Germany (under the title Das Glöckchen des Eremiten) and received a performance in New York City.

Théâtre Lyrique

The libretto by Dumanoir and d'Ennery was based on Charles Perrault's Chat botté (Puss in Boots) and a vaudeville by Eugène Scribe called La chatte metamorphosée en femme.

The sets were designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Auguste Rubé, and the costumes were plentiful and rich.

It did not go unnoticed that the libretto, by Charles Nuitter and Louis-Alexandre Beaumont, was, like Rienzi, based on a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (The Last Days of Pompeii).

Unfortunately, Jules Seveste died unexpectedly on 30 June 1854 in Meudon near Paris.

The alterations to Weber's opera were both textual and musical and involved a change in setting from Bohemia during the Thirty Years War to ostensibly Yorkshire during the reign of Charles I, although Sir Walter Scott's novels may also have been an influence, since Scotland is also mentioned.


Alice Ducasse

As a member of the company at the Théâtre Lyrique under Pasdeloup and Vizentini she sang various roles at that theatre, creating Mab in Bizet's La jolie fille de Perth, as well as Nérine in L'irato by Méhul (November 1868), Formosa in En Prison by Guiraud (March 1869), and Thérèse in Don Quichotte by Boulanger (May 1869).

François Wartel

His wife was Thérèse Wartel, a talented pianist, and their son Émile was a bass who sang and created several operatic roles between 1857 and 1870 at the Théâtre Lyrique and later founded his own singing school.

Victorin de Joncières

He composed some incidental music for Hamlet (performed both in Paris and Nantes) but found little success with two operas produced at the Théâtre Lyrique: Sardanapale (based on Byron, with Christine Nilsson, 1867) and Les derniers jours de Pompéi (from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1869).


see also

Adolphe Deloffre

In 1858 Deloffre went to give concerts in Madrid with other artists from the Théâtre-Lyrique and Opéra-Comique following the French victory in the Battle of Solferino.

Thérèse Wartel

Her husband was François Wartel, and their son Émile performed for many years at the Théâtre-Lyrique, and also established a vocal school of his own.