
Louis-Victor-Nestor Roqueplan
lso sometimes spelled Rocoplan(16 September 1805 – 24 April 1870) was a French writer, journalist, and theatre director.
Early life and career
Nestor Roqueplan was born near
Montréal, Aude, and was the younger brother of the Romantic painter
Camille Roqueplan. He first studied in Marseille, where he completed his secondary education in law, but moved to Paris in 1825, where he was able to publish several literary essays, and joined ''
Le Figaro
() is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...
'' in 1827, becoming its editor-in-chief with
Victor Bohain, who had purchased the paper that year for 30,000 francs.
Roqueplan was considered a dandy, and witty and caustic as a writer. He was an amateur magician, and in about 1830 invented the silk braid trim on trouser seams, which became highly fashionable. He wrote as a critic, and in 1833 he fought a duel with a Colonel Gallois, who was offended by an article in ''Le Figaro''. Roqueplan was wounded but recovered.
Roqueplan also served as a theatre director at the
Théâtre du Panthéon, the
Théâtre des Nouveautés
The Théâtre des Nouveautés ("Theatre of the New") is a Parisian theatre built in 1921 and located at 24 boulevard Poissonnière (Paris, 9th arr.). The name was also used by several earlier Parisian theatre companies and their buildings, begin ...
, and from 1841 to 1847 at the
Théâtre des Variétés.
Paris Opera
Roqueplan and
Henri Duponchel
Henri Duponchel (28 July 1794 – 8 April 1868) was in turn a French architect, interior designer, costume designer, stage designer, stage director, managing director of the Paris Opera, and a silversmith. He has often been confused with Charl ...
joined
Léon Pillet as co-directors of the
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera ( ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be kn ...
on 1 August 1847. Under pressure from increasing criticism of his previous policies, Pillet withdrew completely in November, leaving Roqueplan and Duponchel as co-directors until 21 November 1849, when Duponchel decided to retire. Roqueplan continued as sole director until 11 November 1854, when he was replaced by
François-Louis Crosnier. The two most notable premieres at the Opera during his period as director were Verdi's ''
Jérusalem'' in 1847, which was not particularly successful, and Meyerbeer's ''
Le prophète
''Le prophète'' (''The Prophet'') is a grand opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer, which was premiered in Paris on 16 April 1849. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, after passages from the ''Essay on the ...
'' in 1849 (with mezzo-soprano
Pauline Viardot
Pauline Viardot (; 18 July 1821 – 18 May 1910) was a French dramatic mezzo-soprano, composer and pedagogue of Spanish descent. Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline GarcÃa,FitzLyon, p. 15, referring to the baptismal name. Thbirth recorddigitized a ...
, who had enormous success in the role of Fidès). Later, in 1851, he mounted Gounod's first opera, ''
Sapho'', as a favor to Viardot, who sang the title role. In 1852 he produced Halévy's 5-act grand opera ''
Le Juif errant'', which was well received by many critics and achieved a total of 49 performances, but also resulted in the publication of a defense and critique of the opera in the form of a letter by Roqueplan to ''Constitutionnel'' and a critique by
Jules Janin from the ''
Journal des Debats''. Overall Roqueplan's management of the Opera was considered disastrous, and he was forced out of his position as director, but the financial problems at the Opera failed to damage his personal fortune, and he was well-paid for his service.
[''The Literary Gazette'']
vol. 2, no. 34 (19 February 1859), p. 243
About this time he published two books, the first in 1853 about life in Paris titled ''Regain – La vie parisienne'', and the second in 1855 consisting of theatre gossip called ''Coulisses de l'Opéra''.
Opéra-Comique
On 20 November 1857 Roqueplan succeeded
Émile Perrin
Émile-César-Victor Perrin was a French painter, mainly known as a theatre director and impresario, born in Rouen on 9 January 1814, died 8 October 1885.Dean W. ''Bizet.'' London, JM Dent & Sons, 1978. His son-in-law was Camille du Locle.
Biogr ...
as director of the
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique () is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular Théâtre de la foire, theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief riva ...
, and held the position until 19 June 1860, when he was replaced by Alfred Beaumont. The first new work to be presented under Roqueplan was
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas ''Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet (opera), Hamlet'' (1868).
Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the C ...
's 3-act ''Le carnaval de Venise'' on 9 December. At the beginning of 1859 Roqueplan brought suit against ''Le Figaro'' for harassment regarding his directorship. According to ''The Literary Gazette'' of London, the ''Figaro'' had described Roqueplan as "a species of Pasha, lolling upon a couch, smoking a cigar, and desirous only of escaping from all the details of his administration."
[ Not long thereafter came the triumphant premiere of Meyerbeer's '' Le pardon de Ploërmel'', but despite its success, his financial difficulties increased. Eventually the constant money problems caused him to retire from opera management.
]
Later life
He wrote as a columnist for ''Constitutionnel'' and in 1868 published two booklets (drawn from obituaries he had written for that journal), one about Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano p ...
and another about Baron James de Rothschild. The same year he also published a book of literary sketches of Paris as ''Parisine''.[Roqueplan 1868b; Fétis 1880]
p. 438
list of works by Nestor Roqueplan
at WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
.
Roqueplan remained unmarried and died in Paris.
See also
* Suzanne Lagier
References
;Notes
;Sources
* Fauser, Annegret; Everist, Mark, editors (2009). ''Music, Theater, and Cultural Transfer: Paris, 1830–1914''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. .
* Fétis, François-Joseph; Pougin, Arthur (1880). ''Biographie universelle des musiciens'', supplement, vol. 2. Paris: Didot
View
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Fitzlyon, April (1992). "Viardot (née Garcia), (Michelle Ferdinande) Pauline" in Sadie 1992, vol. 4, pp. 981–982.
* Forbes, Elizabeth (1992). "Thomas, (Charles Louis) Ambroise" in Sadie 1992, vol. 4, pp. 726–727.
* Gerhard, Anselm (1998). ''The Urbanization of Opera: Music theatre in Paris in the Nineteenth Century'', translated from French to English by Mary Whittall. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. .
* Gounod, Charles (1896). ''Mémoires d'un artiste'' (in French). Paris: Calmann, Lévy
View
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Hogg, James; Marryat, Florence (1883). ''London Society: An Illustrated Magazine'', vol. 43. London
View
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Huebner, Steven (1992). "Roqueplan, Nestor" in Sadie 1992, vol. 4, pp. 39–40.
* Jordan, Ruth (1994). ''Fromental Halévy: His Life and Music, 1799–1862''. London: Kahn & Averill. .
* Larousse, Pierre (1866–1890). '' Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle'' (17 volumes). Paris.
* Levin, Alicia (2009). "Appendix: A Documentary Overview of Musical Theaters in Paris, 1830–1900" in Fauser and Everist 2009, pp. 379–402.
* Millingen, J. G. (2004). ''The History of Dueling Including Narratives of the Most Remarkable Encounters. First Volume''.
Partial view
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Richardson, Joanna (1969). ''The Bohemians: la vie de Bohème in Paris, 1830-1914''. London: Macmillan. .
* Roqueplan, Nestor; Janin, Jules (1852). ''Critique du Juif Errant''. Paris
View
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Roqueplan, Nestor (1853). ''Regain. La vie parisienne''. Paris, Librairie nouvelle. . Vie
1869
an
1882
editions at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Roqueplan, Nestor (1855). ''Coulisses de l'Opéra''. Paris: Librairie Nouvelle
View
at Google Books
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.
* Roqueplan, Nestor (1868a). ''Le Baron James de Rothschild''. Paris. .
* Roqueplan, Nestor (1868b). ''Parisine''. Paris
List of editions and formats
at WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
View
at the HathiTrust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...
.
* Roqueplan, Nestor (1868c). ''Rossini''. Paris: Dentu. .
* Sadie, Stanley, editor (1992). ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes.
The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...
'' (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. .
* Tamvaco, Jean-Louis (2000). ''Les Cancans de l'Opéra. Chroniques de l'Académie Royale de Musique et du théâtre, à Paris sous les deux restorations'' (2 volumes, in French). Paris: CNRS Editions. .
* Thomas, Joseph (1908). ''Universal pronouncing dictionary of biography and mythology'', 3rd edition, vol. 2. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
View
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
.
* Wilde, Oscar, editor (1888). ''The Woman's World'', vol. 1. London: Cassell. Source Books (1970 reprint):
View
at Google Books
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Roqueplan, Nestor
1805 births
1870 deaths
People from Aude
French theatre managers and producers
French opera managers
Directors of the Paris Opera
19th-century French journalists
French male journalists
French opera librettists
19th-century French male writers