Adolphe Charles Adam

Short biography Adolphe Charles Adam was born on 24 July 1803 in Paris, the son of the pianist and pedagogue Louis Adam, and died there on 3 May 1856. He received his musical training at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included François-Adrien Boieldieu. His career as a composer was closely bound up with the Parisian opera houses, in particular the Opéra-Comique and the Grand Opéra. In the 1840s Adam founded his own Théâtre National, which collapsed financially in the wake of the Revolution of 1848, leaving him burdened with considerable debts. Towards the end of his life he was appointed Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1849.

Historical placement Adolphe Adam belongs to the era of French Romanticism and may be situated stylistically within the fields of opéra-comique and the Romantic ballet. His music is characterised by memorable melodic writing, assured craftsmanship in orchestration, and a flair for dramatic effect aimed at a broad audience. As the creator of the ballet *Giselle* (1841) he made a lasting and central contribution to the history of the Romantic ballet, a work whose score remains firmly established in the international repertoire to this day. In addition, his many works for the opéra-comique stage contributed substantially to the flourishing of that genre in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Personal connections François-Adrien Boieldieu was Adam's most important teacher at the Paris Conservatoire and exerted a formative influence on his compositional style. Louis Adam, his father, was a respected pianist and pedagogue at the Conservatoire who opened the doors of the professional musical world to his son. Léo Delibes, the later composer of *Coppélia*, was among Adam's pupils at the Conservatoire.

Important works
Giselle, ou les Wilis – ballet (1841)
Le postillon de Lonjumeau – opéra-comique (1836)
Si j'étais roi – opéra-comique (1852)
Le toréador – opéra-comique (1849)
La poupée de Nuremberg – opéra-comique (1852)
Le chalet – opéra-comique (1834)
Le corsaire – ballet (1856)
Minuit, cinq – opéra-comique (1827)