MASSENET, JULES ( b. Montaud, France 12 May 1842; d. Paris, August 13, 1912. )
Massenet gained entrance to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine. Because of his father's ill-health the family was soon forced to move to the country, but the future composer ran away and returned to his musical studies.
Sponsored by the composer Berlioz, he won the Prix de Rome in 1863 and began a career of composition in Germany, Italy and France.
His first published work was a song-cycle Poeme d'Avril (April Poem). It was followed by a one-act opera La Grand’-Tante (The Geat-Aunt). Winning the Prix de Rome entitled him to a production of this work by the Opéra-Comique. It premiered in 1867 and was highly successful, partly because it starred the popular tenor, Victor Capoul.
Massenet's work was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war in which he served as an infantryman during the siege of Paris. After the war he was taken up by the highly-influential singer, Pauline Viardot. She agreed to come out of retirement to perform in his Marie-Magdeleine, which was a huge success.
This led to a further oratorio and a full-scale opera, written for the opening of Charles Garnier's new Paris Opera, in 1875. It was well received, but an oratorio written in 1880 was a critical disaster. As a result, the Opera management rejected Massenet's next work. It was performed in Brussels instead, where it was an immediate success.
1883 saw the première of the opera for which Massenet is best remembered. Based on a novel by the Abbé Prevost, Manon Lescaut, it was staged at the Opera-Comique, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac. With Werther, which premiered in 1892 in Vienna, Manon continues to hold a popular place in the operatic repertoire.
In all Massenet wrote twenty seven operas. Many were highly popular in America in the 1920s, when they were vehicles for the singer Mary Garden.
Throughout his life Massenet tended to be inspired by singers, particularly women. His last muse was a young soprano called Lucy Arbell. In failing health, he finally turned against her when she demanded a monopoly of what she claimed were "her" r├┤les.
