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Andre Charles Prosper Messager

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ANDRE CHARLES PROSPER MESSAGER (1853-), French musician, was born at Montlugon on the 30th of December 1853; he studied at Paris, and in 1874 became organist at St Sulpice. He was for some time a pupil of Saint-Saens. 1876 he won the gold medal of the Societe des Compositeurs with a symphony. In 1880 he was appointed music director at Ste Marie-des-Batignolles. In 1883 he completed Firmin Bernicat's comic opera Francois des bas bleus; and in 1885 produced his own operettas, La Fauvette du temple and La Béarnaise, the latter being performed in London in 1886. His ballet Les Deux pigeons was produced at the Paris Opera in 1886. But it was the production of his comic opera La Basoche in 1890 at the Opera Comique (English version in London the following year) that established his reputation; and subsequently this was increased by such tuneful and tasteful light operas as Madame Chrysantheme (1893), Mirette (1894), Les Petites Michus (1897), and Veronique (1898), the latter of which had a great success in London. Besides conducting for some years at the Opera Comique in Paris, Messager's services were also secured in London in 1901 and later years as one of the directors of the Covent Garden opera.