Nicolas-Charles Bochsa
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Expand French Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Robert-Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (Script error: No such module "IPA".; 9 August 1789 – 6 January 1856) was a French harpist and composer. His relationship with Anna Bishop was popularly thought to have inspired that of Svengali and Trilby in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby.[1]
Life
Script error: No such module "Unsubst". The son of a Bohemian-born musician, Template:Ill, Bochsa was born in Montmédy, Meuse, France.[2]Template:Efn He was able to play the flute and piano by the age of seven. In 1807, he went to study at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the first prize in harmony the following year.[3] He was appointed harpist to the Imperial Orchestra of Napoleon in 1813, and began writing operas for the Opéra-Comique. However, in 1817 he became entangled in counterfeiting, fraud, and forgery, and fled to London to avoid prosecution. He was convicted in absentia, and sentenced to twelve years hard labour and a fine of 4,000 francs.[2]
Safe from French law in London, he helped found the Royal Academy of Music in 1821, and became its secretary. He taught there, among others, the British harp virtuoso Elias Parish Alvars. When his criminal conviction was revealed in 1826, he was forced to resign. He then became musical director of the Kings Theatre, London.
In 1839, he became involved in another scandal when he ran off with the opera singer Anna Bishop, wife of the composer Henry Bishop. They performed together in North America and throughout Europe (except France). In Naples, Bochsa was appointed director of the opera house Teatro di San Carlo and stayed there for two years.
Bochsa arrived with Bishop in Sydney, Australia, at the time of the Victorian gold rush in December 1855, but they gave only one concert together before Bochsa died. Bishop was heartbroken, and commissioned an elaborate tomb for him in Camperdown Cemetery.
Operas
- Le Retour de Trajan, ou, Rome triomphante
- Les Héritiers Michau, ou Le Moulin de Lieursain
- L'Héritier de Paimpol
- Le Roi et la ligue
- Les Noces de Gamache
- La Lettre de change (English: The Promissory Note; German: Der Wechselbrief)
- Un Mari pour étrennes
Bibliography
- Michel Faul, Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, harpiste, compositeur, escroc (Éditions Delatour, 2003)
- Michel Faul, Les Tribulations mexicaines de Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, harpiste (Éditions Delatour, 2006)
Notes and references
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References
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External links
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Composers with IMSLP links
- Articles with International Music Score Library Project links
- 1789 births
- 1856 deaths
- 19th-century French classical composers
- 19th-century French male musicians
- Academics of the Royal Academy of Music
- Composers for harp
- French ballet composers
- French classical harpists
- French fraudsters
- French opera composers
- French people of Czech descent
- French Romantic composers
- French male opera composers
- People from Meuse (department)