Jules Massenet - Biography
Jules Massenet the famed composer of French Romantic opera was born in Montaud on May 12TH 1842 and died on August 13th 1912 in Paris. Massenet’s father served in a managerial capacity at an iron works, his mother was an amateur musician who gave piano lessons. Chronic illness forced Massenet’s father to move to Paris to find a less strenuous occupation. His mother’s lessons made him musically proficient at an early age. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at eleven. His father’s financial difficulties forced him to leave the Conservatoire for a period of time but he returned where he studied composition with the famed opera composer Ambroise Thomas who would remain a significant supporter of Massenet. Massenet was to win the coveted Prix de Rome in 1863 which gave him a stipend to live and study in Rome. During his stay he met Liszt who was then living as a cleric in Rome. Liszt introduced him to a socially prominent French family who engaged to give piano lessons to their daughter whom Massenet was to eventually to marry.
Upon returning to Paris he struggled financially working as a percussionist in various theatre orchestras where he picked up many tricks as an orchestrator that would serve him well in the future. With the influence of Thomas he was to stage his first opera at the Opera-Comique, La Grande Tante in 1867. He also produced the first of his seven ‘picturesque’ orchestral suites. In the early 1870’s he produced the opera Don Cesar de Bazan and a Second Orchestral Suite ‘Scenes Hongoroises’ along with the famed Elegie for cello and piano. His first opera that is now regularly performed was Le Roi de Lahore premiered at the Paris Opera in 1877. Massenet composed two more orchestral suites during the period Scenes Dramatiques and Scenes Pittoresques along with various songs and incidental music. His next major work was the oratorio Marie Magdalena which brought him fame and established a pattern of many of his works where religious feeling was mixed with eroticism. Two more of these Oratorios were Eve (1875) and Le Vierge (1880). Massenet wrote his first major opera Heodiade in 1881 based on the Salome and King Herod story it was a great favorite of the famed French soprano Emma Calve.
Massenet was to write his masterpiece Manon in 1884 based on the Abbe Prevost 18th century novel about a young French courtesan; the opera was enhanced by the spoken dialogued accompanied by a discreet orchestral accompaniment much like a film score. By this time Massenet was a professor of advanced composition at the Paris Conservatory a post he was to hold until his death. Among his students were the well known composers Gustave Charpentier and Gabriel Pierne. Massenet was also made a member of the Academy of Beaux Arts where he eventually was to become the Grand Officer. Massenet personal life was sedate and was almost without personal incident though he was often with his beautiful prima donnas. He was a thorough professional who lived the life of an upper class bourgeois. His next opera was the heroic Le Cid based on the life of the great Spanish warrior. He wrote during this period three more orchestral suites along with ballet Le Carillion in 1892.
Massenet was always lucky in his prima donnas ,in the 1890’s he to have his most famous; beautiful California mining heiress Sybil Sanderson for whom he was to write the leading parts in Esclarmonde (1889) and the erotic biblical tale Thais in 1894. Massenet wrote in the late 1880’s what was to become his most popular opera after Manon, Werther based on the famed Goethe novella Perhaps because of its German theme he couldn’t get a Parisian production and the premiere occurred in Vienna in 1892.
Massenet became very productive during the last fifteen years of his life. The list of opera from these years are Sappho (1897),Cenderillon (aka Cinderella) (1899),Griseldes (1901), the mystery play opera Le Jogleur de Notre-Dame(1902), Cherubin (1905,) Ariane (1906), Therese (1907),Don Quichote (1910) written for the great Russian Bass Feodor Chalaipin and Roma(1912). The parade of operas was to cease only with his death on August 13th 1912 at the age of seventy.
Massenet is tough case to assess. He made absolutely no pretentions to profundity. His operas are vastly entertaining and often genuinely moving but don’t offer a lot of musical nourishment.Like the greater Puccini he wrote great roles for prima donnas. Massenet popularity in France was always high, in Germany and England it was almost nonexistent. much of this changed in the 1970’s due to the pioneering work of conductor Richard Bonynge recording his operas and orchestral music often in productions featuring his wife Joan Sutherland. One must also mention the great performances that Beverly Sills gave as Manon and Thais. The mezzo roles have been in the hands of Frederica von Stade and tenor Nicolai Gedda and soprano Victoria de los Angeles have done distinguished work in the fifties and sixties. For this listener the work of Massenet can sometimes be neglected but when I remember to listen with more heart than head I always enjoy it.
