so great that the opéra comique in self-defense sought to retain its hold upon artistic taste by becoming poetically and musically richer, leaving the field of broad humor to the newcomer.
The pioneers in establishing these ephemeral, but often clever operettas were
Florimond Ronger ['Hervé'] (d. 1892), a singer who started the Folies Concertantes
in 1855, but was soon outranked and betook himself to other cities,
with about 50 works (from 1855); Jacques Offenbach (d. 1880), a Jewish
'cellist, in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique since 1835, who founded the
Bouffes Parisiens in 1855 and had enormous success for many years, with
about 100 works (from 1853); Émile Jonas, also of Jewish birth, in 1847-66
professor of solfeggio at the Conservatoire, with about 20 works (from 1855);
and the more gifted Alexandre Charles Lecocq, with nearly 50 works (from
1857), the special vogue of which did not begin until 1868.
Another reason for the change in the opéra comique was the
curious fact that grand opera, though nominally the highest
form of French musical drama, was seldom actually written by
Frenchmen. The repertory at the Opéra was made up either
of repetitions of older works, or of those produced by foreigners.
Until about 1850 the field was strongly dominated by Meyerbeer
and the Italians.
Among the more or less isolated works of this class should be mentioned
4 operas (1828-55) of moderate success by the Swiss Niedermeyer (d. 1861);
Benvenuto Cellini (1838) and Les Troyens (1863) by Berlioz (d. 1869);
François Villon (1857) and L'esclave (1875) by Edmond Membrée (d. 1882);
and Le jugement de Dieu (1860) by Auguste François Morel (d. 1881).
Intimately connected with French styles were the operas and
operettas of Belgian and Dutch composers, most of whom either
studied or worked more or less at Paris. The Spanish school
of dramatic music received its early impetus from Italy, but its
most characteristic development since about 1830 has been in
the making of 'zarzuelas' or comic operettas, which are obviously
analogous to French forms.
The Belgian list includes 2 operas at Antwerp by the young Jean François Joseph Janssens (d. 1835); 5 at Brussels (1845-52) by Adolphe Samuel
(d. 1898), who was also a good symphonist and theorist (see secs. 213, 225);
nearly 20 (from 1847) by Karel Miry (d. 1889), assistant director at Ghent;
8 (1848-60) by Édouard Gregoir (d. 1890), the historical student of Antwerp,
over 10 (1848-64, mostly at Paris) by the historian Gevaert (d. 1908), then
of Ghent and from 1871 director of the Brussels conservatory; and several
(from 1856) by Benoît (d. 1901), from 1867 director of the Antwerp conservatory
and a fertile author.
