Personne : Étienne-Nicolas Méhul

Titre Date Rôle
Timoléon 1794-09-11 compositeur
Horatius Coclès 1794-02-18 compositeur
Melidore et Phrosine 1794-05-04 compositeur
Le Pont de Lodi 1797-12-15 compositeur
La Caverne 1795-12-05 compositeur
Adrien empereur de Rome 1799-06-04 compositeur
Ariodant 1799-10-11 compositeur
Euphrosine et Coradin 1795-08-20 compositeur
Euphrosine 1790-09-04 compositeur
Le Jeune sage et le vieux fou 1793-03-28 compositeur
Stratonice 1792-05-03 compositeur
Doria 1795-03-12 compositeur
Cora 1791-02-15 compositeur
Le Congrès des rois 1794-02-26 compositeur
Le Jeune Henri 1797 compositeur
La Taupe et les papillons Inconnue compositeur
Le Jugement du berger Pâris 1793-03-06 compositeur

  • Sujet Grove Music Online
    Objet [extrait de:] M. ELIZABETH C. BARTLET: 'Méhul, Etienne-Nicolas', Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 14 June 2004), http://www.grovemusic.com :
    "Méhul, Etienne-Nicolas (b Givet, Ardennes, 22 June 1763; d Paris, 18 Oct 1817). French composer. He was one of the leading composers in Paris during the Revolution, Consulate and Empire.
    Méhul was the son of the Count of Montmorency’s maître d’hôtel, Jean-François Méhul. After studying the organ locally at the Franciscan convent, he took the opportunity to continue lessons with Wilhelm Hanser (who also taught him counterpoint) at the nearby abbey of Laval-Dieu. Soon he became Hanser’s assistant. For an ambitious provincial musician the lure of Paris was strong: Méhul arrived there in 1778 or 1779. He was fortunate to have an introduction to the harpsichordist and opera composer Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, with whom he studied while supporting himself by teaching keyboard instruments and probably playing the organ. Under his teacher’s aegis, Méhul arranged popular opera airs, set one of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau’s odes sacrées, which was performed at the Concert Spirituel in 1782, and wrote a set of keyboard sonatas (1783). […] He became a member of the distinguished society of professional musicians and amateurs the Société des Enfans d’Apollon, which performed several of his dramatic scènes. […] His first major opportunity to follow a career in opera came in 1785 when Valadier offered him his prize-winning libretto Cora. By the end of the following year Méhul had finished the score […]. Adjudications, revisions […] delayed its première until 1791.
    By then Méhul had met François Benoît Hoffman, already a well-established librettist, who became his favourite partner for more than a decade. Their initial collaboration, Euphrosine, ou Le tyran corrigé (1790), was the composer’s operatic début; its success was such that Méhul was quickly recognized as a leading figure in the Parisian musical scene.[…]
    During the Revolution Méhul became widely known as a composer of patriotic songs and choruses, many of them government commissions. […]
    Official recognition soon came for Méhul. In 1795 he became a founder-member of the Institut de France, the first composer and the second youngest person to be named to that body, membership of which represented the highest government honour for scholarship at that time. […] In 1795 the government appointed him one of the five inspectors of the newly reorganized Conservatoire […]
    By the time of Consulate (1799–1804), Méhul was the undisputed master of serious opera with spoken dialogue, and he continued to prefer dramatic librettos for major works. […]
    Méhul benefited from the friendship and support of the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom he dedicated the printed score of L’irato. Bonaparte commissioned from him several large-scale works for public festivals […] In 1804 Méhul was named a member of the newly created Légion d’Honneur. His marriage in 1800 to Marie-Thérèse-Joséphine Gastaldy proved unhappy; by 1808 at the latest they had separated. Afterwards Méhul formed a common-law relationship with Marie-Françoise Tourette, sister of Cherubini’s wife.
    During the Empire (1804–1814/15) he continued to write mainly for the Opéra-Comique […]
    Even though Méhul had close ties to Napoleon and his government, on the Restoration his pre-eminence ensured him a place in the new regime. He was named surintendant honoraire de la musique du Roi, and among his last works was a cantata celebrating the Bourbons’return (spring 1816). […]"
    Utilisateur AS