Jules Massenet Essentials

Jules Massenet was France’s finest fin de siècle composer of opera, with a knack for bringing to life the social and political moods of the time, together with a natural instinct for strong melodies and a richness of sound. After years of finding his feet, writing a few now largely forgotten operas and oratorios (including La Vierge), Massenet achieved his greatest work from the 1880s onwards. His biblicially themed 1881 opera Hérodiade was followed in 1884 by Manon, a work of full-blooded drama and weighty orchestration that secured Massenet’s position as France’s most popular opera composer, and which earned him the name of “Mademoiselle Wagner” (“Miss Wagner”). Not to overshadow the successes of Le Cid and Thaïs, the latter with its beautiful “Méditation” for solo violin and orchestra, Massenet’s masterpiece was undoubtedly Werther with its themes of forbidden love and suicide—and ravishing music.