Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Adolphe Adam
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Works== {{also|List of operas by Adolphe Adam|List of ballets by Adolphe Adam}} In ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', Forbes writes that much of Adam's prolific output was ephemeral. This includes the many popular numbers he wrote for vaudevilles in his early years, a large number of piano arrangements, transcriptions and potpourris of favourite operatic arias, and numerous light songs and ballads. Nonetheless, "there remain several operas and ballets that are not merely delightful examples of their kind, but are also scores full of genuine inspiration". In this category Forbes includes ''Le chalet'' (which incorporates music from the cantata he wrote for the 1825 Prix de Rome competition) which she ranks with Adam's best works for its freshness of invention.<ref name=grove/> For the musicologist [[Theodore Baker]], Adam ranks with Auber and Boieldieu as one of the creators of French opera, thanks to the expressive power of his melodic material and his keen sense of dramatic development.<ref name=b14>Baker, p. 14</ref> [[ File:Le-postillon-de-Lonjumeau-original-production.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|left|''Le postillon de Lonjumeau'', 1836|alt=stage scene with men in 18th-century costumes milling about, in outdoor setting]] In France, during Adam's lifetime and beyond, ''Le chalet'' was his most popular opera. In other countries the favourite was ''Le postillon de Lonjumeau''. In Germany in particular the opera was celebrated for its tenor aria "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" (given in translation as "Freunde, vernehmet die Geschichte"){{refn|"Friends, hear the story"|group=n}}, with its demanding [[D (musical note)#Designation by octave|high D]]. ''Grove'' comments that the opera has distinctive and well characterised roles and a sense of theatre, found in all Adam's operas. Of the later operas, ''Grove'' singles out ''Giralda'' and ''Si j'étais roi'' as "the most stylish, tuneful and accomplished".<ref name=grove/> Although he was a prolific composer of opera, Adam wrote ballet music even more fluently. He commented that it was fun, rather than work.<ref name=p119/>{{refn|"On ne travaille plus, on s'amuse".<ref name=p119>Pougin (1877), p. 119</ref>|group=n}} ''Giselle'' is the best known; Baker calls it a major work in the history of choreography, which continues to be performed with the same success.<ref name=b14/> Forbes comments that although ''Giselle'' has the advantage of a particularly memorable plot, ''La jolie fille de Gand'', ''La filleule des fées'' and ''Le corsaire'' are of equal quality musically.<ref name=grove/> Little of Adam's religious music has entered the regular repertory, with the exception of his [[Christmas carol|Cantique de Noël]], "Minuit, chrétiens!", known in English as "[[O Holy Night]]".<ref name=slon>Slonimsky ''et al'', p. 13</ref> Adam's memoirs were published posthumously, in two volumes: ''Souvenirs d'un musicien'' (1857) and ''Derniers souvenirs d'un musicien'' (1859).<ref name=slon/> In 2023 an exhaustive two-volume study of his stage works (one volume on opera, the other on ballet) by Robert Ignatius Letellier and Nicholas Lester Fuller entitled ''Adolphe Adam, Master of the Opéra-Comique 1824-1856'' was published.<ref>[https://www.forumopera.com/cd-dvd-livre/adolphe-adam-master-of-the-opera-comique-1824-1856/ Review (in French) of Adolphe Adam, Master of the Opéra-Comique 1824-1856 at the Forum Opéra site], accessed 30 January 2024.</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)