History of the Academie De Musique (Origin to about 1908)

This institution, which, following the frequently changed political conditions of France since 1791, has been called in turn Royale, Nationale, and Imperiale, has already entered its fourth century. In 1669 royal letters patent were granted by Louis XIV. to the Abbe Perrin, Robert Cambert, and the Marquis de Sourdeac for the establishment of an Academie wherein to present in public 'operas and dramas with music, and in French verse', after the manner of those of Italy, for the space of twelve years. Nearly a century prior to this, in 1570, similar privileges had been accorded by Charles IX. to a Venetian, C. A. de Baif, in respect to an academy 'de poesie et de musique', but its scheme does not appear to have included dramatic representation. In any case it failed utterly.

The establishment of the existing institution was, however, also preceded, and therefore facilitated, by a series of performances in Italian by Italian artists, beginning in 1584 and continued with little interruption till 1652, and by rarer through not less important ones by French artists, beginning from 1625, when 'Akebar, roi du Mogol', was produced in the palace of the Bishop of Carpentras. This has frequently been spoken of as the earliest veritable French opera; but that title is more justly due to the 'Pastorale en musique' of Cambert, the subject of which was given to the Abbe Perrin by the Cardinal Legate of Innocent X. first performed at Issy in 1659. Two years after, Cambert followed this opera by 'Ariane', and in the following year by 'Adonis'.

The Academie was opened in 1671 with an opera by the same master, 'Pomone', which attained an enormous success; having been repeated apparently to the exclusion of every other work, for eight months successively. The 'strength' of the company engaged in its performance presents an interesting contrast with that of the existing grand opera, and even of similar establishments of far less pretension. The troupe consisted of five male and four female principal performers, fifteen chorus singers, and an orchestra numbering thirteen. The career of the Academie under these its first entrepreneurs was brought to an end by the jealousy of an Italian musician then rising in court favor, J. Baptiste Lully, who, through his influence with Mme. de Montespan, succeeded in obtaining for himself the privileges which had been accorded to Perrin and Cambert. The latter, the master spirit of the enterprise thus wrecked, notwithstanding his hospitable reception by our Charles II., died in London shortly afterwards, at the age of forty nine, of disappointment and home sickness. By this disreputable proceeding Lully made himself master of the situation, remaining to the time of his death, in 1687, the autocrat of the French lyric drama. During these fourteen years he produced, in concert with the poet Quinault, no fewer than twenty grand operas, besides other works. The number, success, and, more than all, the merit, of these entitle Lully to be regarded as the founder of the school of which Meyerbeer may claim to have proved the most distinguished alumnus; though, as we have seen, its foundation had been facilitated for him by the labors of others. In the course of his autocracy, Lully developed considerably musical form in its application to dramatic effect, and added considerably to the resources of the orchestra; though, in comparison with those of more recent times, he left them still very meager. He is said to have first obtained permission, though in spite of great opposition, for the appearance of women on the stage; but as the troupe of his predecessor Cambert included four, his claim to their first introduction there needs qualification. Probably he got prohibition, which had ceased to be operative, exchanged for avowed sanction. The status of the theatrical performer at this epoch would seem to have been higher than it has ever been since; seeing that, by a special court order, even nobles were allowed, without prejudice to their rank, to appear as singers and dancers before audiences who paid for admission to their performances. What it was somewhat later may be gathered from the fact that, not to mention innumerable less distinguished instances, Christian burial was refused (1673) to Moliere ann (1730) to Adrienne Lecouvreur. Lully's scale of payment to authors, having regard to the value of money in his time, was liberal.

The composer of a new opera received for each of the first ten representations 100 livres (about 4 pounds sterling), and for each of the following twenty representations, 50 livres. After this the work became the property of the Academie. The theatre was opened for operatic performance three times a week through the year. On great festivals concerts of sacred music were given. The composers contemporary with Lully (many of them his pupils) could only obtain access to the Academie by conforming to his style and working on his principles. Some few of these, however, whose impatience of the Lullian despotism deprived them of all chance of a hearing within its walls, turned their talents to account in the service of the vagrant troupes of the Foire Saint Germain; and with such success as to alarm Lully both for his authority and his receipts. He obtained an order (more suo) for the suppression of this already dangerous rivalry, which, however, proved itself far too supple for legislative manipulation. The 'vagrants' met each new accordonnance with a new evasion, and that of which they were the first practitioners, and the frequenters of the Foire the first patrons, subsequently grew into the most delightful, because the most truly natural, of all French art products, the Opera Comique. The school of composition established by Lully did not die with its founder; nor for many years was any serious violation of his canons permitted by his adopted countrymen. Charpentier (1634-1702), a composer formed in the school of Carissimi, was unsuccessful in finding favor for the style of his master; Campra (1660-1744) was somewhat less so; while Marais, Desmarets, Lacoste, and Monteclair were gradually enabled to give more force, variety, and character to orchestration. The last of these (1666-1737) first introduced the three stringed double bass, on which he himself was a performer, into the orchestra. But a condition of an art on the whole so stagnant as this was sure eventually to become insupportable, if not to the public, to the few who at all times, consciously or unconsciously, direct or confirm its inclinations. Their impatience found expression in the Abbe Raguenet's Parallele des Italiens et des Francais, en ce qui regarde la musique et les operas (1704), one of a considerable number of essays which assisted in preparing the way for a new style, should a composer present himself of sufficient genius, culture, and courage, to introduce it.

Such an one at length did present himself in Hean Philippe Rameau, whose arrival in Paris in 1721, at the somewhat mature age of forty two, forms an epoch in the history not merely of French opera but of European music. In the face of much opposition this sturdy Burgundian succeeded first in obtaining a hearing from and eventually in winning the favor, though never to the same extent as Lully the affections, of the French people. Between 1737 and 1760, irrespective of other work, he set to music no less than twenty four dramas, the majority of them grand operas. The production of these at the Academie he personally superintended; and some idea of his activity and influence as a directory may be gathered from the fact that in 1750, fourteen years before the close of his career, the number of performers engaged at the Academie had risen to 149; a number, doubtless, to some extent rendered necessary by the increased craving of the public ear for intensity, but more by the varieties of musical effect of which he himself had been the inventor. In 1763 the theatre of the Palais Royal, built by Lemercier, so long resonant with the strains of Lully and Rameau, was destroyed by fire. The ten years which connected the death of Rameau with the arrival in Paris of Gluck were marked by the production of no work of more than secondary rank.

On April 19, 1774, the 'Iphiginie en Aulide' of this master was heard for the first time. The production of this work was followed by that of a series of others from the same hand, one and all characterized by a direct application of musical form and color to dramatic expression before unknown to the French or any other theatre. The arrival in Paris, shortly after, of the admirable Piccinni brought Gluck into relation with a master who, while not unworthy to cope with him as a musician, was undoubtedly his inferior as a diplomatist. Between these two great composers the parts of the typical 'ruse Italian' and the 'simple minded German' were interchanged. The latter left no means untried to mar the sucess of the former, for whose genius he openly professed, and probably felt, high admiration; and in the famous war of the Gluckists and Piccinnists, whose musical knowledge for the most part was in inverse ratio to their literary skill, the victory which fell eventually to the former was the result no less of every species of chicanery on the part of Gluck than of genius especially adapted to captivate a people always more competent to appreciate dramatic than musical genius.

In 1781 the second Palais Royal theatre, like its predecessor, was burnt to the ground. The Academie, for many weeks without a home, at length took temporary refuge in the Salles des Menus-Plaisirs. Meanwhile the architect Lenoir completed teh Salle de la Porte Saint Marin on the short space of three months. The result of this extravagant speed was that, after the first performance, said to have been attended (gratis) by 10,000 persons, the wals were found to have 'settled' two inches to the right and fifteen lignes to the left. In 1784 an Ecole Royale de Chant et de Declamation, aftewards developed into the Conservatoire, was grafted on to the Academie. In 1787 the Academie troupe is said to have consisted of 250 persons, an increase of 100 on that of Rameau.

The unfortunate Louis XVI. took great interest in the Academie, and even gave much personal attention to its regulation. He reduced the working expenses by nearly one half; not at the cost of the working members, but by the abolition of sinecures and other incumbrances on its income. In 1784 he established prizes for libretti, and in 1787 issued several well considered ordonnances for the regulation of the establishment. But from 1789 the thoughts of the ill starred king were exclusively occupied by more weighty and more difficult subjects. On April 20, 1791, the royal family attended the Academie for the last time. The opera was the 'Castor et Pollux' of Rameau. Shortly after this the 'protection', or exclusive right of performance of grand opera, was withdrawn from the Academie and the liberte des theatres proclaimed. Hitherto the names of the artists concerned in the Academie performances had never been published. This rule was violated for the first time in the affiche announcing 'L'Offrande a la Liberte', an opera ballet by Gardel and Gossec. The history of the Academie during the next few years is part of the history of the French Revolution, and could only be made intelligible by details out of all proportion with our space. The societaires, as public officers, were largely occupied in lending the charms of their voices and instruments, the only charms of which they were receptive, to 'Fetes de la Raison', 'Sans Culottides' and eventually to 'Hymnes a l'Etre Supreme', alike unmeaning, indecent, or blashpenous. In many of these the talents of the illustrious Cherubini, who had taken up his residence in Paris in 1788, were employed. The chronological 'Notice' of his compositions, which he himself drew up (Paris, 1843), contains the titles of a large number of productions of this class - 'Hymne a la Fraternite', 'Chant pour le Dix Aout', 'Le Salpetre Republican', and the like. In 1794 the Academie was transferred to the Rue de Richelieu, a locality (the site of the Hotel Louvois) chosen, it was said, by Henriot, convinced of 'the inutility of books', in the hope that an establishment so liable to conflagration as a theatre might lead to the destruction of the Bibliotheque Nationale contiguous to it.

In its new abode the Academie took a new name, Theatre des Arts. Here for the first time the pit was provided for seats. In the four or five years following this removal, the habitues of this Academie became weary of a repertoire having constant ultimate reference to leberte, fraternite, or egalite. The old operas, subjected always to democratic purification, were again heard. In 1799 Gluck's 'Armide' was revived. During the consulate no new works of importance were brought forward at the Theatre des Arts, eventually the scene of two conspiracies against the First Consul, which, had they been successful, would have altered seriously the subsequent history of Europe. On the occasion of the first of these the 'Horaces' of Porta, and on that of the second the 'Creation' of Haydn were performed, the latter for the first time in Paris. During the ten years which follow 1804 French opera was much developed through the labors both of foreign and of native composers; among the former, Spontini, Rodolphe Kreutzer, and Cherubini; among the latter Lesueur and Catel. Among the most important of their works were 'Les Bardes' of Lesueur and 'La Vestale' of Spontini, the later an enormous success won despite bitter and long continued opposition. To Spontini, on account of it, was awarded the prize of 10,000 francs, decreed at Aixla Chapelle by Napoleon for the best opera produced at the Academie (now) Imperiale.

In 1814 the allies occupied Paris, and the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia assisted at a performance of 'La Vestale' on April 1. On May 17 following 'Edipe a Colone' and a Ballet de Circonstance were played before Louis XVIII., the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia. The assasination of the Duc de Berri on the evening of Feb. 13, 1820, interrupted for several months the performances of the Academie. The act and its consequences were attended by every conceivable circumstance that could add to their ghastliness. The dying victim, who could not be removed from the theatre, lay, surrounded by his weeping family, separated only by a thin partition from an audience, unconscious, of course, of the tragedy in progress behind the scenes, convulsed with laughter at the antics of Polichinelle. The last sacraments of the church were administered to the duke on condition exacted, it may be presumed, by the clergy in attendance, that the building in which these horrors were being enacted should be forthwith demolished. On May 3, 1821, the Academie troupe resumed its performances in the Salle Favart, with an Opera de Circonstance, the combined work of Berton, Boieldieu, Kreutzer, Cherubini, and Paer, in honor of the infant Duc de Bordeaeux. In the next year the Academie was again transferred, this time ot the Rue Le Peletier, the salle of which was destined to be for many succeeding years its home, and the scene of even greater glories than any it had yet known. About this time a change of taste in music mainly attributable to a well know critic, Castil-Blaze, showed itself among the opera habitues of Paris. French adaptations of the German and Italian operas of Mozart, Rossini, Meyerbeer, and even Weber, were produced in rapid succession and received with great favor.

The 'Freischutz' of the last great master was performed at the Odeon 387 times in succession. The inevitable result soon followed. The foreign composers who had so effectually served the Academie indirectly, were called upon to serve it directly. The career of Mozart, alas had, many years before, come to an untimely end, and that of Weber was about to prove scarcely more extended. But Rossini and Meyerbeer, though already renowned and experienced, had not yet reached the age when it is impossible or even very difficult to enter on a new career. They became and remained French composers.

Meanwhile Herold, Auber, and other native musicians, had made themselves known by works of more than promise; and the services of a body of operatic composers, foreign and French, unprecedented in number and ability, were made to contribute at the same time to the pleasure of a single city and the prosperity of a sing institution. By a fortunate coincidence, too, there flourished during this period a playwright, Augustin Eugene Scribe, who, despite his style impossible, must be regarded as the greatest master the theater has know of that most difficult and thankless of literary products, the libretto. The two years immediately preceding, and the eighteen following the revolution of July form the period during which the Academie attained its highest excellence and success. Not to speak of a large number of works which in other times might have deserved special mention, this period includes the composition and production of the 'Comte Ory' and the 'Guillaume Tell' of Rossini, the 'Muette' of Auber, the 'Robert le Diable' and 'Charles VI.' of Halevy, the 'Favorite' of Berlioz. These works were performed almost exclusively by native artists, whose excellence has especial claims on our admiration from the fact that, fifty years before, singing as an art can scarcely be said to have existed in France. Writing from Paris in 1778, Mozart says; 'And then the singers - but they do not deserve the name; for they do not sing, but scream and bawl with all their might through their noses and their throats.'

With the times, like many other things, French singing had certainly changed in 1830. Transitory as is the reputation of the average vocalist, the names of Cinti-Damoureau, Falcon, Nourrit, Levasseur, and the later Duprez, are as little likely to be forgotten as those of the admirable masters of whose works they were the first interpreters. Since 1848 the lyric dramas produced at the Academie hold no place beside those of earlier date. Few of them, this is the best of tests, have been performed with any success, or even at all, out of France. The 'Phophete' of Meyerbeer and the 'Vepres Siciliennes' of Verdi present all but the only exceptions; and the composition of the former of these belongs to an earlier epoch. In 1861, when the second empire was, or seemed to be, at its zenith, the foundations were laid in Paris of a new Academie designed on a scale, as respects magnitude and luxury, unprecendented in any age or country. Its progress, from the first slow, was altogether stopped by the Franco-German war and the political changes accompanying it. The theatre in the Rue Le Peletier having meanwhile, after the manner of theatres, been burnt to the ground, and the works of teh new one resumed, the Academie, installed in its latest home, once more opened its doors to the public on Jan. 5, 1875. In some respects the new theatre is probably the most commodious yet erected.

Since the foundation of the Academie in 1669, its relations with the Government, though frequently changed, have never been altogether interrupted. The interference of the state with the entrepreneur has been less frequent or authoritative at one time than at another; but he has always been responsible to a 'department'. Before and up to the Revolution the ultimate operatic authority was the King's Chamberlain; under the Empire the Steward of the Imperial Household; under the Restoration the King's Chamberlain again; under Louis Philippe the Minister of Fine Art; and under Napoleon III. (after the manner of his uncle) the Steward of the Imperial Household again. The arbitrary rule of one of these officers, Marshal Vaillant, brought the working of the Academie to a complete standstill, and the Emperor was compelled to restore its supervision to the Minister of Fine Art. From the foundation of the Academie to the present time its actual management has changed hands, in the course of two centuries, nearly fifty time, though many managers have held office more than once; giving an average of only four years to each term of management. In 1875 the entrepreneur, subject to the Minister of Fine Art, was M. Halanzier, who received from the State a yearly allowance (subvention) of 32,000 pounds, the principal conditions of the enjoyment of which were that he should maintain an efficient staff, open his theatre four times a week, and give favorable consideration to new works by native composers.

[The present director is M. Gailhard, who is in office till 1908. The succession of conductors since 1887 has been as follows: Vianese(1887), Lamoureux(1891), Colonne(1892), Madier de Montjau(1893), Taffanel(1893), Maugin(1894), P.Vidal(1896).]

The facts in this article are drawn from the following works, amongst others:

• Histoire de la Musique dramatique en France, Gustave Chouquet, 1873
• Histoire de la Musique en France Ch. Poiset 1860
• Notice des Manuscrits autographes de la Musique composee par Cherubini 1845
• Koch's Musikalisches Lexicon edited by von Dommer
• Critique et litterature musicales Scudo 1859
• Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la Revolution operee dans la Musique par M. le Chevialier Gluck 1781