Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (1842–1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era, celebrated above all for his operas. Born in Montaud, near Saint-Étienne, he entered the Paris Conservatoire at eleven and won the Prix de Rome in 1863. He became professor of composition at the Conservatoire in 1878, where his pupils included Gustave Charpentier and Gabriel Pierné.

Massenet wrote some thirty operas, of which Manon (1884), Werther (1892) and Thaïs (1894) are most frequently performed today. Manon — based on the Abbé Prévost's novel L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut — is notable for its lyricism, dramatic pacing and psychological insight. Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Manon (1974) uses an ingenious arrangement by Leighton Lucas of Massenet's music, drawn not from the opera but from his orchestral and piano works, woven together to create a score that perfectly sustains the ballet's narrative arc from youthful romance to tragic degradation.

Massenet was the dominant figure in French opera in the generation between Gounod and Debussy, and his influence on French musical style was considerable. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1878.