Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the greatest melodists of his era, Massenet was also the last: soon after his death, his style fell out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many of his operas have seen periodic revivals.
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Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. His first music teacher was his mother (Adélaïde née Royer). When he was eleven his family moved to Paris so that he could study at the Conservatoire there, which was temporarily interrupted by sickness of his father (iron-worker) and necessity to move elsewhere. To support himself at the time of his studies he worked as timpanist for six years at the Théâtre Lyrique, playing also other percussion instruments in other theatres, working as a pianist in the Café de Belleville.
Although, initially, some of his teachers did not predicted for him any career in music, in 1862 he won the Grand Prix de Rome and spent three years in Rome. His first opera was a one-act production at the Opéra-Comique in 1867, but it was his dramatic oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (first performed in 1873) that won him praise from the likes of Tchaikovsky and Gounod. His real mentor and protector was the composer Ambroise Thomas, however, a man with contacts in theatrical circles, and, later, also his publisher, Georges Hartmann, whose connections with journalistic circles helped him to become better known in years of difficult and uncertain start. Even Massenet's marriage to Louise-Constance de Gressy (October 8, 1866) helped him a great deal in social circles, so important in that era.
Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878 he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included Gustave Charpentier, Reynaldo Hahn and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. Notable later operas were Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, produced in 1902, and Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.
In addition to his operas, he also composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the Méditation religieuse from Thaïs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and Élégie for solo piano. The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students.
Massenet died in Paris at age 70, after suffering from a long illness (cancer).[1] [2]
Being a very fertile, hard working composer (over 25 operas, with his daily schedule starting frequently from as early as 4 a.m.), he never created his pieces "at the piano" (as so many other composers do), but entirely from his memory and imagination. That ability greatly helped him to achieve such success in the orchestration of his works.
He also was known to avoid all public dress rehearsals and performances of his works, frequently being informed of his own successes by others.
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