Léo Delibes

French composer

• Born: February 21, 1836
• Birthplace: Saint-Germain-du-Val, France
• Died: January 16, 1891
• Place of death: Paris, France

As a composer, Delibes contributed significantly to the French ballet and opera of the nineteenth century. He is particularly noted for raising the quality of the music composed for ballets.

Early Life

Clément-Philibert-Léo Delibes (duh-leeb) was born into a family that, on the maternal side, evinced musical talent. His grandmother was an opera singer, and his uncle, Antoine Édouard Batiste, was a noted organist and held important posts at the churches of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs and at Saint Eustache. Clémence, Delibes’s mother, was herself a musician, while his father, Philibert, worked as a civil servant in the postal service.

When Léo was eleven years old, his father died. His mother, who had provided her son with the fundamentals of music, moved the household to Paris. At this point, young Léo entered the Paris Conservatory and, in 1850, was awarded a premier prix in solfège. This skill in sight singing stood the future composer in good stead when he later turned his attention to opera. During his tenure at the conservatory, Delibes acquired skill as an organist through his study with François Benoist, a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1815 and a composer of ballets and operas, the two genres in which his pupil was eventually to make his mark. More important, Delibes studied composition with Adolphe-Charles Adam, a master of the opéra-comique (that is, Le Postillon de Longjumeau , 1836) and creator of such popular ballets as Giselle (1841) and Le Corsaire (1856). Adam, a pupil of François-Adrien Boïeldieu, became not only a mentor but also a partial father figure to his student.

Delibes’s other musical enterprise as a youth included experience as a chorister at the Madeleine Cathedral and, on April 16, 1849, in the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète at the Opéra. With the help of Adam, several professional positions were proffered him in 1853, and he thus found himself toiling as an accompanist at the Théâtre-Lyrique and as an organist at the Church of Saint Pierre de Chaillot. Despite his affinity for the organ (he worked as an organist steadily until 1871), Delibes developed an attraction for the theater. With the exception of a brief interlude as a critic (1858) for the Gaulois hebdomadaire, for which he wrote under the pen name Eloi Delbès, this attraction was cemented as early as 1856. In that year, his first stage work, Deux Sous de charbon , was produced at Hervé’s Folies-Nouvelles and received a favorable reception.

Life’s Work

Delibes found the light opera, or operetta, to be a genre well suited to his talent and inclination. Over the next fourteen years, he provided some dozen such entertainments, a few of which were staged at Jacques Offenbach’s theater, the Bouffes-Parisiens. Among them was the enormously popular Deux Vieilles Gardes .

In his role as chorus master at the Théâtre-Lyrique, the young creator arranged the vocal score of Charles Gounod’s Faust (1859) and worked also on two other major staples of the French operatic repertory, Les Pêcheurs de perles (1863) by Georges Bizet and Les Troyens à Carthage (1863) by Hector Berlioz. By 1864, in his role as chorus master at the Opéra, Delibes capitalized on the opportunities that presented themselves to him. His early successes were enlarged upon and solidified with the performance on November 12, 1866, at the Opéra, of the ballet La Source: Ou, Naila , on which he collaborated with the established Austrian-born composer Ludwig Minkus. Delibes’s contribution to the music for scenes 2 and 3 has been adjudged superior to Minkus’s contribution to scenes 1 and 4. A year later, with a divertissement for a revival of Le Corsaire by Adam, Valse: Ou, Pas des Fleurs , Delibes had created for himself a considerable following. An opera bouffe entitled La Cour du roi Pétaud , produced on April 24, 1869, at Variétés, proved to be his final work in this genre.

The single most acclaimed composition by Delibes, the ballet Coppélia: Ou, La Fille aux yeux d’émail , was mounted on May 2, 1870, at the Opéra. The first ballet to use symphonic music throughout and to unify the dance and music into a homogeneity heretofore absent in this art form, Coppélia is based on Ernst Theodor Hoffman’s story “Der Sandmann” (1816; “The Sandman,” 1844). Set in two acts and three scenes, the work opens with a prelude; after the atmosphere has been created, there follow twenty musical numbers, the last of which comprises eight individual sections.

The opera’s story line, which is familiar to those who know Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (1880), centers on the mechanical doll Coppélia, whose lifelike presence impels Franz, a young man who has become infatuated with her, to pursue her to the consternation of his fiancé, Swanhilda. Dr. Coppelius, the eccentric toymaker and magician who created the automaton, loves her as a daughter. When “the girl with the enamel eyes” is proved to be merely a toy, the lovers unite in marriage. It is at this juncture that number 20 of the score, “Festival of the Bell,” with its eight sumptuous pieces featuring various uses of the bell, brings the ballet to a scintillating close. Assorted national dances, such as the mazurka number 3, Thème slave varié number 6, the czardas number 7, and the bolero number 16, coupled with orchestral brilliance and coloration, contribute to the opulence of the composition.

In 1871, Delibes made the decisions to marry Léontine Estelle Denain and to devote himself entirely to composition; the latter determination caused him to refrain from time-consuming activity as an organist and chorus master. Le Roi l’a dit , Delibes’s first major operatic opus, was produced on May 24, 1873, at the Opéra-Comique. Its immediate success in Paris resulted in a performance in Antwerp (August 18, 1873) and, during the next year, performances in Vienna, Karlsruhe, and Prague.

Returning to the ballet, Delibes produced a second masterpiece in this genre with Sylvia: Ou, La Nymphe de Diane ; it was premiered on June 14, 1876, at the Opéra. The story, based on Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1573), deals with Sylvia, a nymph of Diana, and her love affair with the shepherd Aminta. Interest and contrast are created by the involvement in the story of Diana, Eros, and Orion. Stylistically, this work differs from Coppélia; indeed, the political climate in France was also different. Coppélia was a creature of the Second Empire, a period in which Paris was the pleasure capital of the world.

Sylvia, on the other hand, with its stylized mythology, came at a time when France, now a republic, retained strong memories of the Franco-Prussian War and the internal upheavals of the commune. The orchestral scoring in Sylvia reveals immediately a more serious emotionality of expression; there are, in addition, traces of Wagnerian influence. Distinguished musicians, among them Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, who probably heard Coppélia during his several trips to Paris during the 1870’s, were exposed to Sylvia in Vienna.

Now riding the crest of a triumphant wave, Delibes produced his three-act drame lyrique, Jean de Nivelle , on March 8, 1880, at the Opéra-Comique. It was very successful and received one hundred performances until January 6, 1881, at this theater. During the period 1880-1882, it was also performed in Stockholm, Budapest, Copenhagen, Vienna, Geneva, St. Petersburg, and Brussels. Oddly, after its revival at the Gaîté-Lyrique on October 5, 1908, it has fallen into oblivion.

Perhaps feeling a need to supplement his reputation as a composer with academic respectability, Delibes took a position as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory in 1881, this despite admitted weaknesses in fugal and contrapuntal technique. Yet another side of this artist’s talent emerges in the Le Roi s’amuse: Six airs de danse dans le style ancien , written for a revival of Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse (1832; The King’s Fool, 1842), performed on November 22, 1882, at the Comédie-Française. Here, he reveals a distinct rapport for seventeenth century French classicism.

The three-act opera Lakmé premiered on April 14, 1883, at the Opéra-Comique. The exoticism of this work (the setting is India) in which the female lead, Lakmé, is the daughter of the Brahmin priest Nilakantha, has attracted audiences up to modern times, and the lilting strains of its famous love duet are frequently used in modern advertising commercials. In this nineteenth century story, the British officer Gérald is in love with the heroine, much to her father’s displeasure; indeed, the priest vows to kill the English suitor. When, however, Lakmé realizes that Gérald is torn between his duty and his love for her, she eases his burden by committing suicide.

Of all the opera’s many excellences, the coloratura showstopper, the “Bell Song,” remains a tour de force. From 1883 until Delibes’s death, he completed no other major work, but an incomplete opera, Kassya , was produced on March 24, 1893, at the Opéra-Comique. Jules Massenet provided the orchestration but did not add the overture that Delibes did not live to compose.

Significance

Léo Delibes was described by French composer Henri-Charles Merechal as “restless, fidgety, slightly befuddled, correcting and excusing himself, lavishing praise, careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings, shrewd, adroit, very lively, a sharp critic.” This characterization aptly depicts those traits that most strongly affected the ballet master’s creative path. The early works, notably the operettas, are always cited for their facile technique, their light and airy manner, and their elegance and wit. There is no plumbing of depths, no attempt at profundity. Delibes’s operettas represent skillful treatment of a genre then in vogue and one that reached an apex of popularity in the hands of Offenbach, who, as a matter of interest, collaborated with Delibes on Les Musiciens de l’orchèstre (1861) and at whose theater Delibes produced nine of his light operas. Even at the height of his own fame, Delibes took time to complete Offenbach’s Belle Lurette (1880) and Mamzelle Moucheron (1881).

As he matured, Delibes absorbed a variety of influences. Eclecticism as a modus operandi seems to have enabled the musician to create strikingly appealing dance numbers in Coppélia and Sylvia. In addition to the graceful turns of phrase, the orchestration reveals a genuine gift for originality. The use of alto saxophone in the barcarolle of Sylvia is a masterful stroke and one of the earliest efforts to make this instrument a practical member of the orchestra. The “Pizzicati” from the same ballet has been emulated by later composers. The oriental atmosphere in Kassya is skillfully wrought and is a portent of the direction in which Delibes was moving at his death.

Because his reputation had been solidified as a consequence of his stage works, there is a tendency to pay little heed to Delibes’s many choruses, songs, piano pieces, and religious music, such as the Messe brève for two equal voices with organ and string quartet, the Ave maris stelle for two voices, and the Ave verum for two voices. There is no uniformity of opinion with regard to Delibes’s historical place. It is significant, however, that in his own lifetime he was elected a member of the Institut de France (1884). Delibes was viewed by the establishment as one worthy to carry on the French traditions deemed meritorious.

Because as a genre ballet has not attained the status of symphonic music, chamber music, or piano music, Delibes’s position in the pantheon of musical celebrities has suffered, and because he was not a prolific composer, the total number of his works that survive in today’s repertory is less than one dozen. Those who have seen or heard his best creations, however, have experienced an enchantment that lives long in the memory.

Bibliography

Curtiss, Mina. Bizet and His World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958. Contains useful and insightful information about the relationship between Delibes and Bizet.

Downes, Olin. The Lure of Music: Depicting the Human Side of Great Composers, with Stories of Their Inspired Creations. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918. Contains an excellent essay on Delibes and his music, and takes the position that Delibes’s ballets are far more than a potpourri of uninspired dance pieces.

Macdonald, Hugh. “(Clément Philibert) Léo Delibes.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie. Vol. 5. London: Macmillan, 1980. Probably the finest English-language reference article on Delibes. Includes a comprehensive list of works.

Studwell, William E. Adolphe Adam and Léo Delibes: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland, 1987. The heart of the section dealing with Delibes is a comprehensive annotated bibliography arranged topically and alphabetically. There is a valuable summary of Delibes’s life and work, a discussion of the composer’s relationship to his more illustrious contemporaries, and a commentary on the historical role of Delibes and his music’s place in history. The bibliography includes four published writings of Delibes.

Van Vechten, Carl. Excavations: A Book of Advocacies. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1926. Van Vechten, a prominent cultural critic during the 1920’s, includes an essay about Delibes in this collection of essays. Van Vechten credited Delibes with revolutionizing the ballet by introducing a symphonic approach to orchestration and by infusing his scores with melodic grace.