Auber was one of the leading nineteenth-century exponents of
opera comique. The son of a huntsman turned art dealer, he was
born m Normandy and at an early age revealed his gift for playing
the piano. By the time he was a teenager, he had written
Italianate concert arias, a piano sonata, and a string quartet.
In 1802 England and France signed the Peace of Amiens. Auber's
father sent him to England to acquire skills in commerce, but the
following year England again declared war on France, and Auber returned home to concentrate
on music. His single-act pasticcio (a composition formed by
combining the music of two or more composers). L'erreur d'un
moment, was performed in Pans in 1805 and was seen by
Cherubim, who agreed to give him further instruction. He began to
compose prolifically in many forms, and with Cherubim's guidance
achieved his first successful operas comiques with La
bergere
chatelaine in 1820 and Emma in
1821. This led to his
meeting the important librettist Eugene Scribe, with whom he
struck up a working friendship that would last 40 years.
Auber deviated from the French style of opera for the next
three productions, drawing on Rossini's work, winch he much
admired. He reverted to the French idiom in 1824 with Leocadie
and in 1825 with Le mасоn, which
epitomized the best of French opera comique. Other
successes followed, Auber and Scribe achieving a musical cocktail
of French opera with the flair of Rossini's ideas and alternately
funny and sad reflections upon life from the pen of Scribe. The
partnership grew in strength and they were invited to compose the opera La
muette de Portici for the Academie Royale, which was successfully performed in 1828. An
opera on a grand scale based on the French Revolution, its impact
was such that its premiere in Brussels is said to have sparked off
a revolt to free Belgium from Dutch rule. Typically of Grand
Opera, it features dramatic stage effects and huge crowd scenes.
In all, more than 45 operas by Auber were presented in Paris,
37 in collaboration with Scribe. A good example of Auber's comic
opera style is Frva Diavolo, in which the story of the
pursuit and capture of a Robin Hood-like criminal is accompanied
by simple, well-orchestrated melodies, punctuated by decorative
figures which allow the singers to show off.
In 1 825 Auber was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by Charles X,
and in 1852 Napoleon III appointed him musical director of his
Imperial Chapel. In 1842, following in the footsteps of Cherubini,
he became director of the Pans Conservatoire, a post he occupied
until a year before his death in 1871.
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