Michel Carré

File:Michel Carré - 'L'Art français' - Gallica (cropped).jpg

Michel Carré

Michel Carré (; 20 October 1821, Besançon – 27 June 1872, Argenteuil) was a prolific French librettist.

He went to Paris in 1840 intending to become a painter but took up writing instead. He wrote verse and plays before turning to writing libretti. He wrote the text for Charles Gounod's Mireille (1864) on his own, and collaborated with Eugène Cormon on Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles. However, the majority of his libretti were completed in tandem with Jules Barbier, with whom he wrote the libretti for numerous operas, including Camille Saint-Saëns's Le timbre d'argent (libretto written in 1864, first performed in 1877), Gounod's Faust (1859), Roméo et Juliette (1867), and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann (1881). As with the other libretti by Barbier and himself, these were adaptations of existing literary masterworks.

His son, Michel-Antoine Carré (1865–1945), followed in his father's footsteps, also writing libretti, and later directing silent films. His nephew Albert Carré (1852–1938) also wrote libretti.

List of works with libretti by Michel Carré

Title	Composer	Collaborator	Year	Notes
Yvonne et Loïc			1854	Produced at the Théâtre du Gymnase
Victoire!			1855	Cantata to celebrate the Battle of Sevastopol, words by Carré alone
Template:HsLes pêcheurs de perles		Eugène Cormon	1863	Adapted from Octave Sachot's L'ile de Ceylan et ses curiosités naturales
Don Quichotte		Jules Barbier	1869
Don Mucarade		Jules Barbier	1875	One-act comic opera
Lalla-Roukh		Hippolyte Lucas	1862	two-act comic opera
Template:HsLa guzla de l'Émir		Jules Barbier	1873	1-act comic opera
Quentin Durward		Eugène Cormon	1858	Three-act opera
Template:HsLe médecin malgré lui		Jules Barbier	1858	Opéra comique in 3 acts
Faust		Jules Barbier	1859	Adapted from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, loosely based on Goethe's Faust, Part I. Revised 1869
Philémon et Baucis		Jules Barbier	1860	Based on Baucis and Philemon by Jean de La Fontaine (derived in turn from Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VIII)
Template:HsLa colombe		Jules Barbier	1860	Based on the poem Le Faucon by Jean de La Fontaine.
Template:HsLa reine de Saba		Jules Barbier	1862	From Gérard de Nerval's Le voyage en Orient.
Mireille			1864	Libretto by Carré alone, based on Frédéric Mistral's poem Mireio.
Roméo et Juliette		Jules Barbier	1867	An adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Polyeucte		Jules Barbier	1868	Based on Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille
Valentine d'Aubigny		Jules Barbier	1856	Comic opera, 3 acts
Template:HsLes pêcheurs de Catane		Eugène Cormon	1860	Three-act lyric opera
Lara		Eugène Cormon	1864	3-act opera, based on Count Lara by Lord Byron
Galathée		Jules Barbier	1852	Two-act opéra-comique
Template:HsLes noces de Jeannette		Jules Barbier	1853	One-act opéra-comique
Miss Fauvette		Jules Barbier	1855
Template:HsLes saisons		Jules Barbier	1855	Three-act opéra-comique
Paul et Virginie		Jules Barbier	1876	Three-act opéra-comique
Fior d'Alizia		Hippolyte Lucas	1866
Dinorah		Jules Barbier	1859	(Originally titled Le pardon de Ploërmel). Based on two tales by Émile Souvestre, La Chasse aux trésors and Le Kacouss de l'Armor
Deucalion et Pyrrhe		Jules Barbier	1855	One-act comic opera
Template:HsThe Marriage of Figaro	Template:HsW. A. Mozart	Jules Barbier	1858	Translation into French for the Paris Théâtre Lyrique, ran for 200 performances
Template:HsThe Tales of Hoffmann		Jules Barbier (libretto & book)	1881	After a play by Barbier & Carré, Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann produced at the Odéon Theatre in Paris in 1851, based on stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann
Template:HsLa rose de Saint-Flour			1856	Libretto by Carré alone, 1-act operetta
Template:HsLe mariage aux lanternes		Léon Battu	1857	Opérette, 1 act, revised version of Le trésor à Mathurin)
Template:HsLa statue		Jules Barbier	1869?	Opera, 3 acts – piano score arranged by Georges Bizet
Template:HsLe timbre d'argent		Jules Barbier	1865	Saint-Saëns' first opera, an 'opera fantastique'. Not premiered until February 1877. Dialogue re-composed as Grand Opera, premiered in 1913.
Gil Blas	Template:HsTemplate:Interlanguage link multi	Jules Barbier	1860	notes
Hamlet		Jules Barbier	1868	notes
Mignon		Jules Barbier	1866	Based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Revised in 1870
Psyché		Jules Barbier	1860	opéra-comique, 3.acts

Sources

• Christopher Smith: "Carré, Michel", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 4 December 2005) Template:Link note

External links

• Template:Sister-inline