Michel Carré - 'L'Art français' - Gallica (cropped)

Michel Carré (20 October 1821, Besançon – 27 June 1872,

Argenteuil Argenteuil () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil. Argenteuil is the sec ...

) was a prolific French librettist. He went to Paris in 1840 intending to become a painter but took up writing instead. He wrote verse and plays before turning to writing libretti. He wrote the text for Charles Gounod's '' Mireille'' (1864) on his own, and collaborated with Eugène Cormon on

Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become on ...

's ''

Les pêcheurs de perles ' (''The Pearl Fishers'') is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was premiered on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances ...

''. However, the majority of his libretti were completed in tandem with Jules Barbier, with whom he wrote the libretti for numerous operas, including

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...

's '' Le timbre d'argent'' (libretto written in 1864, first performed in 1877), Gounod's '' Faust'' (1859), '' Roméo et Juliette'' (1867), and Offenbach's '' Les contes d'Hoffmann'' (1881). As with the other libretti by Barbier and himself, these were adaptations of existing literary masterworks. His son, Michel-Antoine (1865–1945), followed in his father's footsteps, also writing libretti, and later directing silent films. His nephew Albert Carré (1852–1938) also wrote libretti.

List of works with libretti by Michel Carré

Sources

* Christopher Smith: "Carré, Michel", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed 4 December 2005)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carre, Michel 1821 births 1872 deaths French opera librettists Writers from Besançon 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights