Louis CLAPISSON

Born in Naples, where his father held the position of first horn at the Teatro San Carlo until the fall of the Empire, Antoine-Louis Clapisson returned to France around 1815. In Bordeaux – his father’s new home – he developed his talents as a precocious violinist with Hus-Desforges and began a theoretical training that led him to the Paris Conservatoire. He was admitted into the classes of Habeneck (violin) and Reicha (counterpoint and fugue) in 1830 and into Le Sueur’s composition class in 1834. Little inclined to win prizes, the young man was more interested in integrating with Parisian musical life: a violinist at the Théâtre-Italien from 1832, he tried his hand at composition and saw his first scores published in 1835. La Figurante (1838) launched a fruitful operatic career which continued almost exclusively at the Paris Opéra-Comique until the end of the July Monarchy: alongside numerous one-act works, Le Code noir (1842) and Gibby la Cornemuse (1846) established him as a new master of the genre. His attempt at the Opéra with Jeanne la folle (1848) was less successful, but Clapisson took full advantage of the opening of the Théâtre-Lyrique in the 1850s, notably with La Fanchonnette (1856) and Margot (1857). His fame was also based on a very abundant production of romances, published annually in albums from the 1840s. Elected to the Institut in 1858, where he replaced Halévy, who had become permanent secretary, Clapisson also developed a passion for ancient and exotic instruments. His collection, transferred to the Conservatoire in 1864, became the foundation stone of the Musée instrumental, the future Musée de la musique.