Ambroise Thomas

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868).

Mignon is an opéra comique (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas.

Thomas was born in Metz, the youngest of four children of Martin Thomas (1770–1823) and his wife, Jeanne, née Willaume (1780–1866), both music teachers.

Renowned Messins include poet Paul Verlaine, composer Ambroise Thomas, and mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet; numerous well-known German figures were also born in Metz notably during the annexation periods.

Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning France's top music prize, the Prix de Rome.

Under Auber, composition teachers included Adolphe Adam, Halévy, and Ambroise Thomas; piano teachers, Louise Farrenc, Henri Herz, and Antoine François Marmontel; violin teachers, Jean-Delphin Alard and Charles Dancla; and cello teachers, Pierre Chevillard and Auguste Franchomme.

His first completely successful three-act opera was Le caïd (The Qaid, 1849), described by the musicologist Elizabeth Forbes as "a mixture of Il barbiere di Siviglia and L'italiana in Algeri"; it remained in the French operatic repertoire throughout the nineteenth century, and achieved more than four hundred performances over the next fifty years.

Le caïd, also spelled Le kaïd (The Qaid), is a comic opera (opéra bouffon or opéra bouffe ) in two acts composed by Ambroise Thomas to a libretto by Thomas Sauvage.

Between then and his death at his home in Paris twenty-five years later, he modernised the Conservatoire's organisation while imposing a rigidly conservative curriculum, hostile to modern music, and attempting to prevent composers such as César Franck and Gabriel Fauré from influencing the students of the Conservatoire.

The faculty of the Conservatoire regarded Fauré as dangerously modern, and its head, Ambroise Thomas, blocked the appointment, declaring, "Fauré? Never! If he's appointed, I resign."

Over these years his students included the composers Jules Massenet, Gaston Serpette, and, late in Thomas' career, George Enescu; future academics included Théodore Dubois and Charles Lenepveu; and conductors who were Thomas' students included Edouard Colonne and Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.

There he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired.

He studied the piano with Pierre Zimmerman and harmony and counterpoint with Victor Dourlen.

Among his students were Charles Gounod (who married one of his daughters), Georges Bizet, César Franck, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Ambroise Thomas, Louis Lacombe, Alexandre Goria and Lefébure-Wély.

Over these years his students included the composers Jules Massenet, Gaston Serpette, and, late in Thomas' career, George Enescu; future academics included Théodore Dubois and Charles Lenepveu; and conductors who were Thomas' students included Edouard Colonne and Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.

In 1868 he entered the composition class of Ambroise Thomas at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1871 won France's top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, previously won by Berlioz, Thomas, Gounod, Bizet and Massenet, among others.

He studied the piano with Pierre Zimmerman and harmony and counterpoint with Victor Dourlen.

Among his graduated pupils were Charles-Valentin Alkan, Ambroise Thomas, Francois Bazin, Henri Herz, Antoine François Marmontel, Félix Le Couppey, Alexandre Goria and Louis Désiré Besozzi.

Over these years his students included the composers Jules Massenet, Gaston Serpette, and, late in Thomas' career, George Enescu; future academics included Théodore Dubois and Charles Lenepveu; and conductors who were Thomas' students included Edouard Colonne and Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.

He studied first under Louis Fanart (the choirmaster at Reims Cathedral) and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas.

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868). Thomas was similarly fortunate in his cast for his next success, Hamlet (1868), which starred Jean-Baptiste Faure as Hamlet and Christine Nilsson as Ophelia.

Hamlet is a grand opera in five acts of 1868 by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, with a libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier based on a French adaptation by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

He went on to study the piano with Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and composition with Jean-François Lesueur and Auguste Barbereau.

From the beginning of 1818, he taught composition at the Conservatoire, where over the years he had for pupils Hector Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Louis Désiré Besozzi and Antoine François Marmontel.

Thomas was similarly fortunate in his cast for his next success, Hamlet (1868), which starred Jean-Baptiste Faure as Hamlet and Christine Nilsson as Ophelia.

He remained at the Opéra-Comique for over seven years, singing baritone roles such as Max in Adolphe Adam's Le chalet and Michel in Thomas's Le caïd.

He went on to study the piano with Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and composition with Jean-François Lesueur and Auguste Barbereau.

Among his disciples are Ambroise Thomas and Ernest Guiraud.

The text, by Joseph-Bernard Rosier and Adolphe de Leuven, owes nothing to A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare appears as one of the characters, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's Falstaff, the governor of "Richemont", where the action takes place.

He produced over 170 plays and librettos, with operatic settings by Adam including Le postillon de Lonjumeau, Clapisson and Thomas.

It was produced at the Opéra-Comique, received 247 performances, and in the next few years was given in Brussels, New Orleans, Berlin, Vienna and London.

Despite disparaging reviews of the libretto from English-speaking critics at the time and subsequently, the work has remained an occasional part of the operatic repertoire; later singers of Ophelia included Emma Calvé, Emma Albani, Nellie Melba and Mary Garden, and among the Hamlets have been Victor Maurel, Titta Ruffo, Mattia Battistini and more recently Sherrill Milnes, Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson.

Melba made such rapid progress that she was allowed to sing the "Mad Scene" from Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet at a matinée musicale in Marchesi's house in December the same year, in the presence of the composer.

Despite disparaging reviews of the libretto from English-speaking critics at the time and subsequently, the work has remained an occasional part of the operatic repertoire; later singers of Ophelia included Emma Calvé, Emma Albani, Nellie Melba and Mary Garden, and among the Hamlets have been Victor Maurel, Titta Ruffo, Mattia Battistini and more recently Sherrill Milnes, Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson.

Hampson's operatic repertoire spans a range of more than 80 roles, including the title roles in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini's Guillaume Tell and The Barber of Seville, Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet, and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.

Over these years his students included the composers Jules Massenet, Gaston Serpette, and, late in Thomas' career, George Enescu; future academics included Théodore Dubois and Charles Lenepveu; and conductors who were Thomas' students included Edouard Colonne and Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht.

In 1864, on Chauvet's recommendation, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied composition under Ambroise Thomas.

The text, by Joseph-Bernard Rosier and Adolphe de Leuven, owes nothing to A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare appears as one of the characters, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's Falstaff, the governor of "Richemont", where the action takes place.

Later in Thomas' life his academic career largely overtook his activities as a composer, and after Hamlet, he composed only one more opera: Françoise de Rimini (1882), which was well received but did not enter the regular operatic repertoire.

The last opera composed by Ambroise Thomas, it sets a French libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier which is based on an episode from Dante's Divine Comedy.

(A happy ending was then compulsory at the Opéra-Comique: it was another nine years before Carmen defied the convention there, ending with the death of the main character.) The strong original cast featured, in the title role, Célestine Galli-Marié, a celebrated singer who later created the part of Carmen in Bizet's opera.

Her most famous roles were in Thomas's Mignon (1866) and Bizet's Carmen (1875).

Despite disparaging reviews of the libretto from English-speaking critics at the time and subsequently, the work has remained an occasional part of the operatic repertoire; later singers of Ophelia included Emma Calvé, Emma Albani, Nellie Melba and Mary Garden, and among the Hamlets have been Victor Maurel, Titta Ruffo, Mattia Battistini and more recently Sherrill Milnes, Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson.

Before her London contract began, she returned to Italy to study with Lamperti at Lake Como, and then appeared at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, giving one last series of nine performances in ten days in the title role of Ambroise Thomas's Mignon, a part she studied with the composer in Paris prior to her making her debut in the role.

The text, by Joseph-Bernard Rosier and Adolphe de Leuven, owes nothing to A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare appears as one of the characters, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's Falstaff, the governor of "Richemont", where the action takes place.

Despite disparaging reviews of the libretto from English-speaking critics at the time and subsequently, the work has remained an occasional part of the operatic repertoire; later singers of Ophelia included Emma Calvé, Emma Albani, Nellie Melba and Mary Garden, and among the Hamlets have been Victor Maurel, Titta Ruffo, Mattia Battistini and more recently Sherrill Milnes, Thomas Allen and Thomas Hampson.

She sang Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet in Paris in 1899, but the part was not suited to her and she dropped it.