Alphonse Royer, (10 September 1803 – 11 April 1875) was a French author, dramatist and theatre manager, most remembered today for having written (with his regular collaborator, Gustave Vaëz) the librettos for Gaetano Donizetti's opera La favorite and Giuseppe Verdi's Jérusalem.

His experiences during those years also served as the inspirations for several other works, including his novels Venezia la bella (1834) and Robert Macaire en Orient (1840) and a collection of novellas, Un Divan (1834).

On his return to Paris, Royer made his literary debut with a novel set in the Middle Ages, Les Mauvais Garçons, which he co-authored with Henri Auguste Barbier.

The play premiered to great success at the Théâtre des Nouveautés on 27 February 1830 with incidental music by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Carl Maria von Weber, and Louis Spohr.

[3] In the ensuing years, Royer wrote several more novels and plays, contributed articles to a variety of Parisian periodicals, and formed a close friendship and working partnership with the Belgian playwright and poet, Gustave Vaëz.

Royer and Vaëz have forced our language, so cold and so unmalleable, so constrained by consonants, so loaded with epithets, to enter without too many cuts and bruises into this narrow and flexible mode of Italian poetry.

[5]Although their collaboration on the Italian operatic repertoire ended in 1847 with Jérusalem, they later wrote the original libretto for François-Auguste Gevaert's 1853 opéra comique, Georgette ou Le moulin de Fontenoy.

In addition to their work on opera librettos, Royer and Vaëz co-wrote many plays, ranging from serious drama to comédie en vaudeville, several of which premiered at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.

During Royer's tenure, the Opéra produced the world premieres of operas by Giuseppe Verdi (Le trouvère, the French version of Il trovatore), Fromental Halévy (La Magicienne), Félicien David (Herculanum), Prince Poniatowski (Pierre de Médicis), and Charles Gounod (La reine de Saba) as well as ballets by Ernest Reyer (Sacountalâ), Daniel Auber (Marco Spada), and Jacques Offenbach (Le papillon).

Wagner recalled that when the whistling began, Royer turned to him in complete resignation and said, "Ce sont les Jockeys; nous sommes perdus."

In his autobiography, Wagner described Royer in one of their early encounters: On one of these occasions Bulow accompanied me, and we were both struck by a ridiculous habit peculiar to this singular old man, whom Belloni[15] said he had known in his youth as a box-office clerk at the Scala Theatre in Milan.

He suffered from involuntary spasmodic movements of the hands, the result of certain not very creditable physical infirmities, and probably to conceal these he continually toyed with a small stick, which he tossed to and fro with seeming affectation.

[16] Royer remained director of the Paris Opéra until Vaëz's death in 1862, after which he left to become France's Inspecteur Général des Beaux-Arts (Inspector General for the Fine Arts).

Halanzier's address at the graveside emphasized Royer's personal modesty and kindness and his contribution to opera and to the Paris Opéra in particular, concluding with: This is why his memory will live on with us.