Charles Lecocq (1832-1918)

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TRANSCRIPTION

Mon cher Girardin

Pouvez-vous venir causer avec moi demain matin? J'ai un petit service à vous
demander, concernant la belle Impéria. Il s'agit de me faire quelques vers que je suis incapable de faire moi-même et que je ne peux pas obtenir comme je les veux de Clairville. Il a bien fait les changements que je lui ai demandés, mais, c'est écrit dans un tel charabia qu'il m'et impossible de faire chanter cela à Judic et Suchard. Etes-vous homme à vous charger de ce petit travail? Cela m'est indispensable pour écrire la grande scène du 2e acte. Je compte sur votre obligeance.

Tout à vous

Ch. Lecocq

Jeudi

TRANSLATION

Dear Girardin¹

Could you come talk to me tomorrow morning? I want to ask a favor concerning La Belle Impéria². It's for some verse I am unable to write myself, and that I cannot get done by Clairville³ the way I would like it. He did in fact make the changes I asked him to, only the result is an awful gibberish that I cannot possibly ask Judic⁴ and Suchard⁵ to sing. Are you the man to undertake this little job? It is indispensable for writing the main scene of the second act. I rely on your eagerness to help.

Yours,

Ch. Lecocq

Thursday

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Charles Lecocq (1832 -1918) was a student of Fromental Halevy at the Paris Conservatoire. He was quite successful in Paris as a writer of operettas. Le Docteur Miracle (1857) was his first operetta. It was written for a competition organized by Jacques Offenbach. Lecocq shared the prize with Georges Bizet.⁶ It premiered April 8, 1857. Bizet's opera by the same title premiered the next day. Their mutual teacher, Halévy, did not come to Lecocq's performance, but he did attend Bizet's.⁷Lecocq admired Bizet's abilities. "He [Bizet] was the only composer I have ever known, said Lecocq," who could work while hearing music [of others]."⁸Lecocq also attended the premiere of Bizet's most famous opera, Carmen, on March 3, 1875.⁹ Lecocq produced six one-act operettas, but his first genuine success was Fleur de thé (1868), an operetta in three acts. Eleven operettas followed, including Les Cent Vierges (1872). La Fille de Madame Angot (1872), for which Lecocq is probably best known, had been the hit of Paris for nearly two years.¹⁰ As a composer, Lecocq also wrote polkas, mazurkas, and many songs.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

NOTES:

1) Probably Emile de Girardin (1806-1881) - French Journalist, born in Paris. He was an author and the publisher of La Presse, an influential magazine that started in 1836. Married to Delphine Gay (1804 - 1855) who was herself a writer for La Presse under the name of Charles de Launay.

2) La Belle Impéria (The Fair Imperia) from the Droll Stories, Volume One by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) published in 1903 by P. Chez Louis Conard .

3) Probably writer Louis Nicolaïe Clairville (1822-1879). Coincidentally, there was a Mademoiselle Louise Rietti Clairville who was, before 1804, a resident artist of the "Theater of the Arts" (The Paris Opéra), but there is no evidence at this time to connect these two individuals except to say they share the same last name. (See French Music by Jean Mongrédian, pg 155).

4) Judic refers to a popular singer, Anna Judic, known in particular association with composer Jacques Offenbach. Madame Judic was a very popular vaudevillian and café-concert favorites whose renditions of French patriotic songs and sentimental romances were "adored by the public." (Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope 1870-1925 by Elaine Brody (New York: 1987) p.101, 108) According to John Culme (Footlight Notes), Judic was in the mind of Offenbach when he composed Madame l’Archiduc (1874). The following reference is from Bizet and His World by Mina Curtiss (New York:1958), p. 389: Referring to the premiere of Bizet's opera Carmen on March 3, 1875, Curtiss says, "A large part of the audience consisted of Meilhac and Halévy's devoted followers: Offenbach's stars, Hortense Schneider, Zulma Bouffar, and his latest discovery, Mme [Anna] Judic, who postponed her departure for St. Petersburg for the occasion."

5) Suchard, probably another singer, but no reference at this time.

6) "Lecocq dedicated two piano mazurkas to [Georges] Bizet and also sent him affectionately inscribed copies of songs published under the pseudonym George Stern." -Footnote from Bizet and His World by Mina Curtiss (New York:1958) p. 41

7) Bizet and His World by Mina Curtiss (New York:1958) p. 42

8) Ibid, p. 345

9) Ibid, p. 389

10) Ibid, p. 389

Rev. 02/13/2005

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