Léo Delibes: a biography

After early lessons with his mother, Delibes entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 12 but this precocious start led only to jobs as organist and accompanist (Adolphe Adam, the composer of Giselle, recommended him to a post at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1853) and as chorusmaster (he assisted Gounod, Berlioz and Bizet).

He had a hit with his very first work for the stage, a light-hearted one-act operetta called Deux sous de charbon. That set the seal on his career, for Delibes became a complete man of the theatre. His ballet La source (later revived as Naïla), presented by the Paris Opéra in 1866, was his first break, followed four years later by a second ballet  commission, Coppélia.

With another ballet, Sylvia, 10 years later, Delibes achieved lasting fame as one of the great melodists of music. His deft and imaginative orchestration won him many admirers including Tchaikovsky (you can hear the influence that Delibes had on his own ballet music) and, later, Stravinsky.

Delibes was not as successful with his operas. That is not until, almost out of the blue, came his exotic masterpiece Lakmé in 1883. 

None of Delibes’s music has pretensions to depth or high aesthetic ideals like some of his contemporaries. He wrote expertly crafted, delicately drawn scores of tuneful, characterful music.