Ludovic Halévy

Ludovic Halévy was born in the 10th arrondissement of Paris on 1 January 1834, the son of Léon Halévy and his wife, Louise Alexandrine, {{nee}} Lebas. Léon was descended from a German Jewish family (originally Lévy) but converted to Roman Catholicism before his marriage; his wife was a member of a well-known and influential famiy, daughter of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas, architect of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Paris.Hansen, pp. 2 and 17 Léon, whose elder brother was the composer Fromental Halévy, was a senior civil servant and a well-respected author.Smith, Christopher. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O007612 "Halévy, Ludovic"], Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2002 {{subscription}}

In 1845 Halévy entered the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.Hansen, p. 46 He was an undistinguished scholar but he was well enough connected to secure admission to the French civil service after leaving school. His official career flourished but his chief interest was the theatre. Concerned that his career prospects would suffer if he were publicly associated with the theatre he adopted the pen-name Jules Servières, under which he first collaborated with the composer Jacques Offenbach. Their {{lang|fr|bouffe musicale}} called Madame Papillon, a one-act knockabout piece with a cast of two, opened at the Bouffes-Parisiens on 3 October 1855.Yon, pp. 157–158 Halévy abandoned the pseudonym the following January, when his real name was credited on bills for the duo's "chinoiserie musicale", Ba-ta-clan, but he returned to using it soon afterwards and did so for several years.

In 1857 Offenbach organised a competition for young composers. A jury of French composers and playwrights including Daniel Auber, Fromental Halévy, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod and Eugène Scribe considered seventy-eight entries; the six short-listed entrants were all asked to set the same libretto, {{lang|fr|Le docteur miracle}}, written by Halévy together with Léon Battu.Yon, pp. 180–181 The joint winners were Georges Bizet and Charles Lecocq, with both of whom Halévy was later to collaborate again.Gammond, p. 42

Still cautious about the effect a reputation for writing operettas might have on his career, Halévy declined to have his name on the bills for his first outstanding success with Offenbach – Orphée aux enfers – and insisted that his co-librettist, Hector Crémieux, should receive all the credit and the royalties.Gammond, p. 49; and Faris, pp. 62–63 The piece opened on 21 October 1858 and ran for 228 performances, at a time when a run of 100 nights was considered a success.Gänzl, p. 1150; and Esteban, p. 7

===1860–1870===

In 1860 Halévy collaborated with his father on the libretto for {{lang|fr| Un mari sans le savoir}} ("A Husband Without Knowing It") with music by "Monsieur de Saint-Rémy" – in reality by the Duc de Morny who dabbled in operetta both as a librettist and as a composer.Yon, p. 246 Morny's patronage worked to Halévy's advantage in his official career, and soon after the première of {{lang|fr| Un mari sans le savoir}} Morny arranged for Halévy's appointment as secretary to the Corps législatif.Hansen, p. 160

In 1864 Halévy began a collaboration with the author Henri Meilhac which was to last until the latter's death in 1897. The two had become friends when both at the {{lang|fr| Lycée Louis-le-Grand|italics=no}}, sharing a distaste for school life and a preference for escaping it. They were strikingly different – one biographer writes, "with Meilhac the more ebullient and fanciful, and Halévy the more staid and craftsmanlike" – but they remained close friends and now became inseparable collaborators.Hansen, p. 54 Accounts differ about how the partners divided the work between them. According to Siegfried Kracauer, it was always Meilhac who outlined the skeleton of the plot and sketched the big scenes and situations, which Halévy "filled in with witty comment and dialogue".Kracauer, p. 244 Susan McClary writes, "In their collaborations, Meilhac wrote the prose dialogue, while Halévy provided the verse".McClary, p. 18

File:Portrait of Ludovic Halévy.jpg

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians says of Halévy and Meilhac:

{{blockindent|Their achievement lay to a considerable extent in exploiting to the full the existing forms of opéra comique with its combination of music and speech, its transparently artificial plot and its topicality, which often found expression in irreverent parody. ... Situations are contrived for concerted numbers, especially at the ends of acts, and solos and ensembles are both energetic and varied. The versification of the lyrics is deft, rhyme and vocabulary are amusing, and sentiments are expressed clearly. The spoken dialogues are crisp and laconic, sometimes colloquial and never pompous except in jest. with these means Halévy and Meilhac mocked everything they observed around them in a Second Empire society that took itself too seriously.}}

The 1860s saw an unbroken series of eight {{lang|fr|opéras bouffes}} by Halévy, Meilhac and Offenbach. They started with a notable success, La belle Hélène, which opened on 17 December 1864. Despite some hostile criticism from Théophile Gautier ("To try to ridicule the heroes of Homer is almost to blaspheme") and Jules Janin ("perfidious Meilhac, treacherous Halévy, miserable Offenbach") the piece ran through most of 1865.Faris, pp. 126 and 134 The three followed this hit with two more: La vie parisienne (1866) and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867).Faris, pp. 141–142; and 147 Le château à Toto (1868) did less well,Faris, p. 158 but La Périchole (1868) was another success. It was based on Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement, a comedy by Prosper Mérimée, who was to feature again in Halévy and Meilhac's work four years later. Their last two collaborations with Offenbach in the 1860s – La diva (1869) and Les brigands (1869) – were less successful.Faris, p. 160 The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and the downfall of the Second Empire caused a strong reaction against Offenbach from the public, who identified him with the fallen regime. He left the country for a time, taking refuge in London and Vienna.Gammond, p. 102

File:Prudent-Louis Leray - Poster for the première of Georges Bizet's Carmen.jpg|alt=theatre poster with illustration of young white woman dancing]]

Although the two librettists were known for their comedies, in 1872 they undertook what was, for them, an unusual assignment. Halévy's cousin Geneviève (daughter of Fromental) was married to Bizet, whom the directors of the Opéra-Comique invited to write an opera in collaboration with Halévy and Meilhac. The librettists were enthusiastic about the composer's preference for a plot based on Prosper Mérimée's story Carmen;McClary, p. 19 they provided a libretto with the requisite tragic ending. Nonetheless, they regarded the piece as a side venture. Just before the premiere, Halévy wrote:

{{blockindent|There are some very, very lovely and charming things in the score, and I dare hope for a happy evening for Bizet. His interests alone matter in this instance. The thing has little importance for Meilhac and me."Quoted" in McClary, p. 18}}

The management of the Opera Comique was uneasy about presenting a tragedy, and Meilhac unsuccessfully urged Bizet to resist killing Carmen off at the end of the last act.McClary, p. 23 Their predictions of a failure proved accurate: the piece completed its scheduled run of forty-eight performances, but played to small audiences.McClary p. 28

This was the pair's only venture into tragedy. They wrote seven more libretti together, of which three were for Offenbach and four for Lecocq. Grove comments on their efforts for Carmen: "perhaps the most famous product of the Halévy-Meilhac collaboration, but not a very typical one ... There is some justice in the complaint that the remarkable style of Mérimée’s original narrative is lost".

When Offenbach returned to Paris from his voluntary exile he collaborated with Halévy, without Meilhac, on an opérette, Pomme d'api, and with both librettists on revised versions of La vie parisienne and La Perichole; the three collaborators' final work together was an opéra bouffe, La boulangère a des écus.(1875). Thereafter Halévy and Meilhac provided libretti for four opéras comiques with music by Lecocq: Le petit duc (1878), La petite mademoiselle (1879), Janot (1881) and La rousotte (1881), in the last of which there was also music by Herve and Marius Boullard. They were unwitting contributors to Johann Strauss's 1874 Die Fledermaus, which plagiarised the plot of their 1872 comedy Le Réveillon (New Year's Eve).Harewood, pp. 410 and 748 They refused to allow the operetta to be produced in France.Lamb, Andrew. "Meilhac, Halévy and Viennese Operetta", Opera, December 1972, p. 1066{{refn|Strauss's music was heard in Paris in 1877 with a completely new libretto by Alfred Delacour and Victor Wilder, retitled {{lang|fr|La Tzigane}} (The Gypsy), although, as Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique commented, the piece had "absolutely nothing gypsy, either in its melodies or in its costumes". It was not until 1904 that the version based on the original Meilhac and Halévy comedy was seen in Paris.|group=n}}

Halévy retired in 1882. Meilhac kept writing until shortly before his death in 1897.Saint-Albin, Albert and Henri Fouquier. "Mort de Henri Meilhac", Le Figaro, 7 July 1897, p. 1 Halévy died in Paris on 8 May 1908.

In addition to his theatrical works, Halévy published novels, short stories and satirical studies. He and Meilhac worked together on numerous non-musical comedies, from {{lang|fr|Ce qui plait aux hommes}} ("What Men Like", 1860) to {{lang|fr|la Petite Mère}} ("The Little Mother", 1880).Martin, pp. 271–274

Halévy was elected as a member of the Académie française in 1881; he was appointed vice-president of the Society of Authors in 1882, and became an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1890.

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:Source: Nos auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques.

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• {{cite book | last=Esteban | first=Manuel | title= Georges Feydeau| year=1983 | location= Boston| publisher=Twain | url=https://archive.org/details/georgesfeydeau0000este/page/n7/mode/2up|url-access = registration| isbn= 978-0-8057-6551-9}}
• {{cite book | last = Faris | first = Alexander | author-link = Alexander Faris | year = 1980 | title = Jacques Offenbach | location = London | publisher = Faber & Faber |url=https://archive.org/details/jacquesoffenbach0000fari_r6l8 |url-access = registration | isbn = 978-0-571-11147-3}}
• {{cite book | last = Gammond | first = Peter | author-link = Peter Gammond | year = 1980 | title = Offenbach | location = London | publisher = Omnibus Press | url=https://archive.org/details/offenbach0000gamm|url-access = registration |isbn = 978-0-7119-0257-2 }}
• {{cite book | last= Gänzl | first= Kurt| author-link = Kurt Gänzl | title= The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre | edition = second | year= 2001| location= New York | publisher= Schirmer | isbn= 978-0-02-864970-2}}
• {{cite book | last = Hansen | first = Eric | title = Ludovic Halévy: A Study of Frivolity and Fatalism in Nineteenth-century France| date = 1987| location = Lanham| publisher = University Press of America| isbn = 978-0-81-915887-1}}
• {{cite book | last = McClary | first = Susan|authorlink=Susan McClary | title = Georges Bizet: Carmen| date = 2002| location = Cambridge | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-0-52-139301-0}}
• {{cite book | last = Martin | first = Jules | title = Nos auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques | language=French|date = 1897| location = Paris | publisher = Flammarion |url=https://archive.org/details/nosauteursetcomp00martuoft/page/386/mode/2up| oclc = 9145330}}
• {{cite book | last = Noël | first = Édouard | author2 = Edmond Stoullig | title = Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique, 1877 | url =https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54951b/f478.item.r=La%20Tzigane| language = fr| year = 1878 | location = Paris | publisher = Charpentier | oclc = 1051558946 }}
• {{cite book | last = Yon | first = Jean-Claude|author-link=Jean-Claude Yon| year = 2000 | language = fr | title = Jacques Offenbach | location = Paris | publisher = Gallimard |url=https://archive.org/details/jacquesoffenbach0000yonj/mode/2up| url-access = registration|isbn = 978-2-07-074775-7}}

• {{wikisource author-inline|Ludovic Halévy}}
• {{Gutenberg author |id=1344| name=Ludovic Halévy}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Ludovic Halévy |sopt=w}}
• {{Librivox author |id=10531}}
• [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=127&letter=H JewishEncyclopedia]

{{Académie française Seat 22}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Halevy, Ludovic}}

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Category:1908 deaths

Category:French Christians

Category:Writers from Paris

Category:Members of the Académie Française

Category:French musical theatre lyricists

Category:French opera librettists

Category:French people of German-Jewish descent

Category:19th-century French dramatists and playwrights

Category:19th-century French male writers