Massenet, Jules

Massenet, Jules, French musical composer, was born at Montaud, near St Étienne, on 12th May 1842, and after a most successful career as a student at the Paris conservatory, chiefly under Ambrose Thomas, he was appointed professor of Composition at that institution in 1878. He won the Prix de Rome in 1863, was favourably received as the composer of meritorious orchestral works and a comic opera, La Grande Tante (1867), before the Franco-Prussian war, and in 1873 took his place amongst the foremost of the younger composers of France, his fame being established by the comic opera Don César de Bazan (1872), the classical opera Les Erinyes (1873), and the oratorio Marie Madeleine (1873). These were followed by the oratorios Eve (1875) and Vierge (1879), the great operas Roi de Lahore (1877), Hérodiade (1881), Manon Lescaut (1884), and Esclarmonde (1889), besides numerous pianoforte and orchestral pieces.