Charpentier, Gustave. (1860-1956)
Signed Photograph with "Louise" AMQS, from the Vienna Premiere
Signed Cautin & Berger cabinet photograph, inscribed with a three-measure quotation from the opera "Louise," boldly signed and dated "Wien 24 Mars 1903 / (1iere de Lousie)" by the composer on the image. Mounting remnants along the upper edge, else fine. 11 x 17 cm.The opera was first performed at the Opéra Comique, Paris, February 2, 1900. "Charpentier's growing success in the 1890s with La vie du poète and open-air extravaganzas like the Sérénade à Watteau and La couronnement de la muse, coupled with the expected scandal attached to the opera's promiscuous theme and the excitement of the Paris Exhibition, led to a box-office triumph in February 1900, though the composer had nearly starved during the previous year. The vociferous young left wing hailed him as the saviour of French music, though it was undoubtedly the sociological ideals of this first opera of women's liberation rather than its music which appealed. Dukas gave the soundest verdict: ‘The first and last acts are those of a master; the other two are those of an artist; the whole is the work of a man’." (Robert Orledge, Grove Online) (11648)
AMQS Classical Music