Herve, Florimon

Florimon Herve was born in the city of Uden near Arras . In childhood, he sang in a church choir. Herve kept his beautiful voice ( tenor ) for life. He received his musical education at the Paris Conservatory under Daniel Aubert .

He worked as an organist and choirmaster in a church at the psychiatric hospital in Bisetra, near Paris. ^[1] Engaged in music therapy in the classroom and rehearsal with patients at the clinic. At the same time, he secretly makes a career in musical theater: first as an actor and singer ( lyric tenor ), then as a composer , playwright and director . This situation was later portrayed by librettists in his most popular operetta, Mademoiselle Nitouche .

In 1845, he won the competition for the organist seat of the Parisian church of Saint-Estache . When his writings began to be successful, he completely devoted his life to musical theater .

In 1848, under the pseudonym Herve , he wrote the one-act musical burlesque Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, which, despite all the revolutionary upheavals of this year, was a great success with the public. Sometimes this performance is even considered as the first French operetta .

In 1851, Herve became the conductor and leader of the orchestra at the Palais Royal Theater . Soon he opens his own theater, which had a great influence on the formation of the operetta genre and its further development.

In 1870 he went to London and gave his works in English, speaking in them with success. ^[2]

In the last years of his life, Herve suffered from mental illness ^[3] and died in Paris on November 4, 1892, having survived Offenbach for twelve years.

In 1855, having become the director of the café chantant Folie-Mayer on du Boulevard in Paris, Herve transformed it into his own theater called Foley Consertan ( French Folies concertantes ), for which he began to write and stage new operettas. A month later, the theater was renamed "Foley Nouvel" ( French Folies-Nouvelles ). ^{[3] The} French word "foliage" - insanity, folly - becomes the label, identification mark and business card of Herve, who in those years became fashionable and famous.

Herve soon abandoned his copyright monopoly in this theater. Leo Delibes , the future author of popular operas and ballets , as well as Jacques Offenbach , made his debut here, even before the opening of his theater at the Buffy-Parisian Theater . One of the first works by Jacques Offenbach was performed at Foley Nouvel: Oi-oi-oi, or the Queen of the Islands, with the subtitle “musical anthropophagy ”, in which Herve himself played the main role of the double bass player Racle a Mora. This buffoonery had many similarities with the works of Herve: the same absurdities, apology of the absurd and laughter for the sake of laughter.

After Offenbach opened his own theater, competition with him soon grew into personal enmity, and reconciliation came only in 1878 , when Herve sang the part in the Offenbach operetta Orpheus in Hell .

In the 1860s, the Foley Nouvel Theater was renamed the Foley Dramatic. In this theater were performed in particular:

• "Shot Through the Eye" - a parody of the opera " William Tell " by D. Rossini ,
• Little Faust is a parody of the opera Faust by S. Gounod .

There were also parodies of the “knightly” operas of D. Meyerbeer . Blanche d'Antigny successfully performed in these operettas. They ridiculed the routine of opera forms, static, self-sufficient virtuosity of vocal parts, and classical characters spoke the language and jargon of Parisian boulevards. “Little Faust”, a parody of Gounod’s “Faust”, was also staged in Russia under the name “Inside Out” and was perceived, first of all, as a mockery of Goethe himself. ^[one]

Herve wrote more significant works after the success of the operettas of Offenbach. ^[2] In 1883 , at the age of six dozen, Herve created the most famous operetta in his work - “ Mademoiselle Nitouche ”. Unlike his other works, this operetta is filled with sincere lyricism and is a musically and dramatically matured work. The main role in this operetta was intended for the famous actress Anna Judik , who ensured great success for this work.

Herve is the creator of the operetta buff genre. His early compositions, mostly buffoonery, in which he ridiculed traditional opera forms, were very close to the operetta in terms of genre; therefore, he is considered along with Offenbach , the founder of the French operetta and, to some extent, his predecessor.

To exclude the possibility of rivalry with the privileged Opera-Comedian , the authorities limited Herve’s performances in “ Folies concertantes ” to one act and only two actors, but he successfully circumvented the prohibitions: in his productions there were deaf-mutes and dolls, a “corpse” and even a severed head, which sang from a prompter's booth. ^[one]

The one-act buffoons of Herve were not yet operettas, they only felt for a new path and contained the embryos of those qualities that were destined to develop in the near future and grow into a real operetta. So there was a small musical stage miniature - a theatrical parody, in which the pantomime was combined with an eccentric buffoonery and with elements of satire on Parisian life. In the 1860s, these restrictions were largely lifted. After the abolition of restrictions, he created multi-act works that parody opera and drama theaters. Herve's later works are marked by the strong influence of Jacques Offenbach.

Hervé was the first to take an interest in the origins of his genre, studying the archives of the Variete Theater, among which were the posters of the operetta Little Orpheus (premiere June 13, 1792), The German Baron, and The Blockade of the Canteen. He tried in vain to find the musical or the dramatic and claimed that the operetta genre was created at the end of the 18th century , in the era of the French revolutions , and he and Offenbach only resurrected it. ^[one]

One Act Buffonades:

• Bactrian Camel
• Pearl of alsace
• Impossible duet
• Crazy composer

Herve wrote over 120 operettas. Among them, the most famous are:

• Les folies dramatiques (1853)
• Les chevaliers de la Table Ronde (1866, Knights of the Round Table, Buff-Parisienne Theater)
• L'œil crevé (1867, Shot Through the Eye, a parody of William Tell by Rossini , Foley Dramatic)
• Chilpéric (1868, a parody of chivalric novels)
• Le petit Faust (1869, Little Faust)
• Les Turcs (1869, Turks)
• Le trône d'Écosse (1871, Throne of Scotland)
• La veuve du Malabar (1873, The Malabar Widow)
• La belle poule (1875, The Fine Chicken)
• La Femme à Papa (1879)
• Mam'zelle Nitouche (1883, Mademoiselle Nitouche )

• Mademoiselle Nitouche - France , 1954
• Mademoiselle Nitouche - performance of the theater. Ermolova, 1974
• Sky Swallows - Lenfilm , 1976 (without Herve music).

See also: List of adaptations

• List of operetta composers

• Vladimirskaya A.R. The operetta starry clock. 1st edition. L .: Art. 1975, 136 p.
• Solovyov N.F. Gervais, Florimon // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Jankowski M. Operetta. The emergence and development of the genre in the West and in the USSR. L. - M., 1937.
• Yaron G. M. About your favorite genre. M .: Art, 1960.
• Schneider L. Les maitres de l'operette francaise: Herve, Charles Lecock, P., 1924.