Victor Roger (22 July 1853 – 2 December 1903) was a French composer. He is best known for his operettas, particularly the lighter kind known as the "vaudeville-opérette". His thirty theatre works, composed between 1880 and 1902, also include pantomimes and ballets. His best-known piece, Les vingt-huit jours de Clairette, has remained in the repertory of French companies.
Roger was born in Montpellier, in the south of France, the son of a musician. [1] After studying at the École Niedermeyer he began his career composing songs and operettas for the Eldorado music hall. In 1886, he had a success with Joséphine vendue par ses soeurs, a parody of Méhul's biblical opera, Joseph et ses frères. He followed this with Les vingt-huit jours de Clairette (1892), an operetta on a military theme, in the tradition of the earlier operetta composer Hervé. It ran initially for 236 performances and was revived in 1900, 1901, 1903, 1908, 1914, 1920, 1921 and 1925, [2] and was filmed in 1933. [3]
Les vingt-huit jours de Clairette was by far Roger's greatest success, and so it has tended to eclipse his other works, some of which enjoyed considerable popularity initially. [2] L'auberge du Tohu-Bohu, which followed in 1897, was another example of "vaudeville-opérette", in which the spoken comedy took a more equal part with the music than in traditional operetta. [1] Besides his songs and operettas, Roger's compositions included some ballet and pantomimes, the former being Le vague (1883), La Camargo (1901), and Cendrillon (1902), and the latter were Balazi-Boumboum (1888) and Chez le conturier (1895). He collaborated with the composers Gaston Serpette (Cendrillonnette (1890) and La Dot de Brigitte (1895)) and Paul Lacome (Mademoiselle Asmodée (1891)). [1] The critic Andrew Lamb wrote of Roger, "His music is admirably crafted, demonstrating melodic grace, charm and a flair for rhythmic effect that are well suited to the lighthearted stage works to which he contributed." [1]
Roger was a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, a critic for the publication La France, and editor of the theatrical news in the Petit journal. He also acted as secretary of the Paris Opéra balls. [1]
Roger died in Paris at the age of 50.
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Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its shorter length, the operetta is usually of a light and amusing character. It sometimes also includes satirical commentaries.
Jacques Offenbach was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Henri Meilhac was a French dramatist and opera librettist, best known for his collaborations with Ludovic Halévy on Georges Bizet's Carmen and on the works of Jacques Offenbach, as well as Jules Massenet's Manon.
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La fille de Madame Angot is an opéra comique in three acts by Charles Lecocq with words by Clairville, Paul Siraudin and Victor Koning. It was premiered in Brussels in December 1872 and soon became a success in Paris, London, New York and across continental Europe. Along with Robert Planquette's Les cloches de Corneville, La fille de Madame Angot was the most successful work of the French-language musical theatre in the last three decades of the 19th century, and outperformed other noted international hits such as H.M.S. Pinafore and Die Fledermaus.
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Albert Vizentini was a French violinist, composer, conductor and music writer, born in Paris on 9 November 1841, and died there on 21 October 1906. His main centre of activity was the French capital, but he also worked for ten years in Russia and toured in Britain and Ireland.
Maurice Ordonneau was a French dramatist and composer. The son of a merchant of eau de vie, Ordonneau was a prolific author in creating theatrical works. He composed, often with the collaboration of other playwrights, composers and musicians, a great number of operettas, opéra-bouffes, comedies and vaudevilles.
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Antony Mars was a French playwright
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