December 17th 2013-March 16th 2014 Bibliothèque-musée de l'Opéra Verdi & Wagner

During my last stay in Paris I visited the Library-Museum of the Opera de Paris which is a section of the Bnf (Bibliothèque nationale de France). I wanted to have a look into the artist file of Gilbert Duprez (Paris - 6 December 1806 – 23 September 1896) a famous operatic singer of the beginning of the ninneteenth century – as famous as the italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti in our times. No biography as been made about Gilbert Duprez until now which is strange for such an artist, but it was before recording and he has been almost completely forgotten…. Which I consider unfair, so I am trying to do something, to write  about his life not on a musical point of view because I am not a musician, and if I am keen on listening to fine voices I am  quite unable to make the difference between a « do » and a « mi »
I took the opportunity to visit the exhibition made on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the composers Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
Giuseppe Verdi is an Italian romantic composer primarily known for his operas. He dominated the opera scene after the eras of Bellini (1801-1835) Donizetti (1797-1848) and Rossini (1792-1868).
His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world . The lyrics (libretto) of the Traviata and Rigoletto have been translated into french by Duprez’s brother Edouard Duprez .
Verdi often pushed the bounderies of the genre , some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture such as « Va, pensiero » from Nabucco, « La donna è mobile » from Rigoletto , the « Grand March » from Aida ….
Verdi and Richard Wagner are considered the two preeminent opera composers of the nineteenth century . Unlike most opera composers Richard Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works . He revolutionnised opera through his concept of « Total work of art » by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts with music and play . He fully realised these ideas in the four opera cycle : the Ring of the Nibelung . These two contemporary artists brought to the opera a novel conception of both the operatic genre and the stage .
Wagner and Verdi aimed to conquer Paris and its famous Opera.
This exhibition which started december 17th and will continue until march 16th 2014 at the Bibliothèque-Musée of the Opera house displays more than one hundred pieces such as paintings, drawings, models, costumes, sheet music, videos and archival documents and re-examines the place of Verdi and Wagner’s monumental and reforming work in the repertoire, from the opening night of Jérusalem in 1845 to the ten performance days for the four parts of Richard Wagner’s L’anneau  du Nibelung in 2013.
I remembered that Duprez ended his career in the Opéra in « Jérusalem » in the part of Gaston . Verdi had to adapt his work for the famous singer Gilbert Duprez . The exhibition highlights only two other singers Marie Constance Sasse and Victor Maurel …. I think they forgot my beloved tenor Gilbert Duprez… I should have asked the nice chief curator who welcomed me in his library one hour before and who turned out to be the exhibition curator of this good exhibition, but perhaps I missed something or because of a matter of room choices had to me maid ...
Just before to leave the Opera I took a glance through an opened door of a box of the hall, some dancers were rehearsing on the stage , I asked for it, one female keeper told me it was one of the last rehearsal of Onéguine by John Cranko, a ballet  due to begin on the 3rd of February.