[프랑스-차이콥스키의 극찬을 받은 'Sylvia'를 작곡한 음악가]Léo Delibes[레오 들리브]

Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes

 (21 February 1836 – 16 January 1891)

was a French composer of the Romantic era (1815–1910), who specialised in ballets, operas,

and other works for the stage. His most notable works include the ballets Coppélia (1870) and

Sylvia (1876), as well as the operas Le roi l'a dit (1873) and Lakmé (1883).

본격적인 예술 발레 음악을 처음으로 작곡했다. 발레를 위해 만든 선구적인 교향곡은 예술음악 작곡가들에게 새로운 영역을 개척해주었고, 차이코프스키를 비롯한 여러 작곡가들의 춤곡에서 그 영향을 확인할 수 있다. 이국 취향이 엿보이는 가볍고 우아한 음악은 프랑스 제2 제정시대의 풍조를 반영하고 있다.

들리브는 파리 음악원에서 영향력있는 오페라 작곡가인 아당에게 배운 후, 1853년 테아트르 리리크의 반주자, 1863년 파리 오페라의 반주자가 되었고 1881년 파리 음악원의 작곡교수, 1884년 프랑스 학술원 회원이 되었다.

들리브는 초기에 오펜바흐를 비롯한 오페레타 작곡가들의 영향을 받아 오페레타·패러디(parody：이미 만들어진 곡에서 선율이나 가사를 차용하여 작곡을 하는 기법)·파르스(farce：유머러스하거나 외설적인 내용의 극 중 극)를 만들었다. 또한 밍쿠스와 함께 발레 음악인 〈샘 La Source〉(1866)을 작곡해서 성공을 거두자 E. T. A. 호프만의 소설을 각색한 〈코펠리아 Coppélia〉(1870)와 신화를 주제로 한 〈실비아 Sylvia〉(1876) 같은 대규모 발레 음악을 작곡해달라는 의뢰를 받았다. 또 한편으로는 오페라에 대한 재능을 개발하여 오페라 코미크 〈왕은 그렇게 말했다 Le Roi l'a dit〉(1873)를 발표했고, 이어서 정가극 〈니벨의 장 Jean de Nivelle〉(1880)과 〈라크메 Lakmé〉·(1883)를 작곡했다. 유명한 아리아 〈종의 노래 Bell Song〉가 있는 걸작 〈라크메〉는 참신하고 이국적인 음악으로 동양을 실감나게 그려내고 있다. 또한 교회음악(그는 한때 교회 오르간 연주자로 일했음)과 아름다운 노래도 몇 곡 만들었는데, 그 가운데 〈카디스의 소녀들 Les Filles de Cadiz〉은 비제의 음악을 연상시킨다.[다음 백과]

Life and career

The composer was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, now part of La Flèche (Sarthe), France, in 1836; his father was a mailman, and his mother a talented amateur musician. His grandfather had been an opera singer. He was raised mainly by his mother and uncle following his father's early death. In 1871, at the age of 35, the composer married Léontine Estelle Denain. His brother Michel Delibes migrated to Spain; he was the grandfather of Spanish writer Miguel Delibes.

Starting in 1847, Delibes studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire as a student of Adolphe Adam. A year later he began taking voice lessons, though he would end up a much better organ player than singer. He held positions as a rehearsal accompanist and chorus master at the Théâtre Lyrique, as second chorus master at the Paris Opéra (in 1864), and as organist at Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot (1865–71). The first of his many operettas was Deux sous de charbon, ou Le suicide de Bigorneau ("Two sous-worth of coal"), written in 1856 for the Folies-Nouvelles.

Excerpt from Delibes' score: The first few measures of Pizzicato from Sylvia

A ceremonial cantata, Algers, for Napoleon III on the theme of Algiers, brought him to official attention; a collaboration with Ludwig Minkus resulted, in which Delibes composed music jointly for the ballet La source (1866), which brought him into the milieu of ballet. In 1867 Delibes composed the divertissement Le jardin animé for a revival of the Joseph Mazilier/Adolphe Adam ballet Le corsaire. He wrote a mass, his Messe brève, and composed operettas almost yearly and occasional music for the theater, such as dances and antique airs for the 1882 revival of Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse,

the play that Verdi had turned into Rigoletto.

Delibes achieved true fame in 1870 with the success of his ballet Coppélia; its title referred to a mechanical dancing doll that distracts a village swain from his beloved and appears to come to life. His other ballet is Sylvia (1876).

Never in robust health, Delibes died little more than a month before his 55th birthday. He was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.

Compositions

	Divertissement - Pizzicato Menu 0:00 Divertissement - Pizzicato from Sylvia — 3081 KB
Problems playing this file? See media help.

	En avril (for three-part children's choir) Menu 0:00 Performed by l'Atelier Vocal des Herbiers
Problems playing this file? See media help.

It has been suggested that Delibes also wrote the ballet music for Gounod's Faust which had been

inserted ten years after the original performance of the opera.^[1]

Of Delibes's various operas, the last and most important was the lush orientalizing Lakmé (1883),

which contains the famous coloratura showpiece known as the Légende du Paria or Bell Song ("Où va la jeune Indoue?") and The Flower Duet ("Sous le dôme épais"), a barcarolle

that Patricia Rozema made famous in her film "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" and later used by British Airways commercials. At the time, his operas impressed Tchaikovsky enough for the composer to rate Delibes more highly than Brahms—although this may seem faint praise when one considers that the Russian composer considered Brahms "a giftless bastard."^[2]

His work is known to have been a great influence on composers such as Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Debussy. His ballet Sylvia was of special interest to Tchaikovsky, who wrote of Delibes' score: "... what charm, what wealth of melody! It brought me to shame, for had I known of this music, I would have never written Swan Lake."