Théâtre Lyrique

Jules Seveste, the new director who had taken over after the death of his brother Edmond, opened the season on 4 September 1852 with the premiere of a particularly noteworthy new French opéra comique, Adolphe Adam's three-act Si j'étais roi (If I Were King), which received an especially lavish production.

[5] Seveste was also fortunate with his second new offering that season, a "trifling" one-act opéra comique by Eugène Gautier called Flore et Zéphire, which was first performed on 2 October 1852 and ultimately presented 126 times by the company.

For the premiere Saint-Léon had composed and played a violin solo called "Une matinée à la Campagne" ("A morning in the country") in which he imitated all the sounds of a barnyard.

[10] Seveste's 1853–1854 season continued to introduce many new French works, including a three-act opéra comique by Adolphe Adam called Le bijou perdu (The Lost Jewel), which was first performed on 6 October.

Cabel, who had been discovered as a child by Pauline Viardot, had failed to make much of an impression at the Opéra-Comique in the 1849–1850 season, but she achieved greater success at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels from 1850 to 1853 and in guest appearances in France at theatres in Lyons and Strassbourg.

[14] The wheels of the bureaucracy had finally caught up with reality at the Théâtre Lyrique on 21 May 1854, when the Minister of the Interior announced that Jules Seveste was now indeed the legitimate holder of the ten-year license, formerly for the Opéra-National, which had originally been awarded to his brother Edmond in 1851.

Two singers new to the company were also to receive much praise: the mezzo-soprano Pauline Deligne-Lauters, who would later marry Louis Guéymard and have a successful career at the Opéra; and the tenor Léon Achard, who would later create the role of Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas' Mignon at the Opéra-Comique (with Cabel as Philine).

Marie Cabel starred in the title role, and a new tenor, Jules Monjauze, who had previously been an actor at the French Theatre in Saint Petersburg and at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris, sang Maurice.

The alterations to Weber's opera were both textual and musical and involved a change in setting from Bohemia during the Thirty Years War to ostensibly Yorkshire during the reign of Charles I, although Sir Walter Scott's novels may also have been an influence, since Scotland is also mentioned.

The singers included Pauline Deligne-Lauters in the role of Annette (Agathe in the original), Caroline Girard as Nancy (Ännchen), Rousseau de Lagrave as Tony (Max), and Marcel Junca as Robin (Samiel).

Hector Berlioz in the Journal des débats thought the sets and the men's chorus were good, but the woodwinds in the orchestra made so many egregious errors that the audience began murmuring.

M. Duprez seems to have considered this masterpiece from the Castil-Blaze point of view; and as the "maestro" had taken liberties with this great composer's text, the "professore" thought he might, with equal good grace, embellish and vary the melodies.

The public delighted at a tour de force, quand même, applauded 'to the echo;' and it was only on reading the feuilletons of the principal journalists that Madame Lauters woke from her dream of contented happiness.

Although Pellegrin's appointment with the Théâtre Lyrique was ratified on 29 September 1855, he was having little success and shortly after signing Miolan-Carvalho, in the midst of preparations for a new premiere, Clapisson's La fanchonnette, he was forced to file a petition for bankruptcy.

[35] The Musical World (14 April 1860) wrote that Ugalde "fills the role of the hero to the great delight of the public, for whatever charm may now and then be found wanting in her voice she supplies by her animated acting [...] nothing is equal to the song she sings before the door of the inn where the villagers are feasting, accompanying herself with a mandoline.

Pauline Viardot was Isabelle, Duchesse d'Aragon (Leonore in the original version), Guardi (né Hector Gruyer) sang the role of Jean Galéas (Florestan), and Charles-Amable Battaille was Rocco.

[40] For the 1860–1861 season Réty's most successful new production was a revival of Halévy's three-act opéra comique Le val d'Andorre (15 October 1860; 135 performances) with Marie-Stéphanie Meillet as Rose-de Mai and Jules Monjauze as Stéphan.

The most successful new work was Ernest Reyer's three-act opéra comique La statue (11 April 1861; 59 performances) with Blanche Baretti as Margyane, Jules Monjauze as Sélim, and Émile Wartel as Kaloum.

The libretto by Dumanoir and d'Ennery was based on Charles Perrault's Chat botté (Puss in Boots) and a vaudeville by Eugène Scribe called La chatte metamorphosée en femme.

Not long before opening at the new theatre in October, the company was officially renamed Théâtre Lyrique Impérial, but reverted to its previous name after the fall of Napoleon III in 1870.

Performances at the new venue began on 16 March with Faust, but by 7 May 1868 Carvalho was bankrupt, the new venture ceased to operate, and he was eventually forced to resign as director of the Théâtre Lyrique.

[48] Ernest Reyer reported that at the second performance of Iphigénie on 29 November Pasdeloup arrived at the theatre after having "directed in the morning the beautiful Mass of Mme la Vicomte de Grandval at the Panthéon, and, in the afternoon the concert at the Cirque [Napoléon].

Gustave Bertrand, writing in the 7 February issue of Le Ménestrel, complained that the audience was "as unjust as they were brutal" and found that "Mlle Orgeni is an artist of merit.

The cast included Jules Monjauze as Rienzi, Anna Sternberg as Irène, Juliette Borghèse as Adriano, and Marguerite Priola (in her operatic debut) as Le Messager.

It had been advertised that the settings would be designed by Enrico Robecchi, Charles-Antoine Cambon, Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon, but by the time of the premiere it was evident that much of the scenery and costumes had been reused from previous productions.

Le bal masqué was followed by Michael William Balfe's three-act The Bohemian Girl, in a revised and highly adapted French version by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

The recitatives and new music for the 1869 version were probably composed by Balfe himself, who arrived in Paris in March and was present during the preparation period, even though he appears to have been seriously ill with bronchitis and bedridden during most of that time.

[65] The Théâtre Lyrique's production was first performed on 30 December 1869, and the cast included Palmyre Wertheimber as La Reine Mab, Hélène Brunet-Lafleur as Sarah, and Jules Monjauze as Stenio de Stoltberg.

[68] According to the correspondent of the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, La Bohémienne, when compared to Balfe's earlier operas which had been presented in Paris, was by far a more fortunate show, that greatly benefited from its "singable, fresh melodies" and the careful ensemble work of the principal artists.

(The work transferred to the Opéra-Comique, where it opened successfully on 7 July 1870, with a cast including Jules Monjauze, Marie Roze, and Marguerite Priola in the role Cabel was to have sung.