Emmanuel Bondeville

Emmanuel Bondeville was a French composer and music administrator, born 29 October 1898 in Rouen, and died 26 November 1987 in Paris.

[1] He made his beginnings in music around 1923 writing works for piano, symphonic poems, opéras-comiques and opéras.

The French Radio was relocated to Marseille but the Vichy government sacked Bondeville because he was not pro-regime; however when the radio returned to Paris in 1943 and Bondeville was asked to take on the musical directorship, he organized festivals of French composers in defiance of Nazi propaganda.

[2] From 1949 to 1951 Bondeville was director of the Opéra-Comique,[3] followed by a similar position at the Opéra de Paris from 1952 to 1969.

He was married three times, among which to the mezzo-soprano Viorica Cortez, to whom he dedicated his opera Antoine et Cléopâtre, and later to Dominique Plessis (with whom he broadcast programmes entitled ‘Une saison d'opéra’ on France-Inter).