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CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE THOMAS (1811-1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 866 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE THOMAS (1811-1896)  , French musical composer, was born at
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Metz on the 5th of August 1811 . He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and won the
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Grand Prix de Rome in 1832 . Five years later (in 1837) his first opera, La Double echelle, was produced at the Opera Comique . For the next five-and-twenty years Thomas's productivity was incessant, and most of his operatic
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works belonging to this period enjoyed an ephemeral popularity . A few of these are still occasionally heard on the continent, such as Le Caid (1849), Le Songe d'une nuit d'ete (1850), Psyche (1857) . The overture to Raymond (1851) has remained popular . So far the composer's operatic career had not been marked by any overwhelming success . He occupied a place among the recognized purveyors of operas in the French capital, but could scarcely claim to having achieved
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European renown . The production of Mignon at the Opera Comique in 1866, however, at once raised Ambroise Thomas to the position of one of the foremost French composers . Goethe's touching tale had very happily inspired the musician; Mme Galli
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Marie, the
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original interpreter of the title-role, had modelled her conception of the
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part upon the well-known picture by Ary Scheffer, and Mignon at once took the fancy of the public, its success being repeated all over the continent . It has since remained one of the most popular operas belonging to the second
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half of the 19th century . Thomas now attempted to turn Shakespeare's
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Hamlet to operatic account .

His opera of that name was produced with success at the Paris Opera in r868, where it enjoyed a

long vogue . If the
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music is scarcely adequate to the subject, it nevertheless contains some of the composer's best
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work . The scene of the esplanade is genuinely dramatic, the part of Ophelia is poetically conceived, and the
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ballet music is very brilliant . Ambroise Thomas's last opera, Fran4oise de
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Rimini, was given at the Opera in 1882, but has not maintained itself in the repertoire . Seven years later La Temple, a ballet founded on Shakespeare's
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play, was produced at the same theatre . Ambroise Thomas succeeded Auber as director of the Paris Conservatoire in 187r . His music is often distinguished by refined touches which reveal a sensitive mind, and there is a distinct element of
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poetry in his Mignon and Hamlet, two operas that should suffice to keep the composer's memory green for some time to come . He died on the 12th of
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February 1806 . (A .

End of Article: CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE THOMAS (1811-1896)
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