Although this failed and was withdrawn after 11 performances, it led to a further commission from the theatre, this time for a full-length opera for which Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy would provide the libretto.

Meilhac and Halévy will be found at their best in light sketches of Parisian life, Les Sonnettes, Madame attend Monsieur, Toto chez Tata and Le Roi Candaule ( the title of the last is derived from the Classical Greek account of the semi-legendary King Candaules ).

Halévy told him innumerable stories about the amorous life of the star — Anna Judic, whose ménage à trois would become the model for Rose Mignon, her husband, and Fauchery — and also about famous cocottes such as Blanche d ' Antigny, Anna Deslions, Delphine de Lizy, and Hortense Schneider, an amalgam of which was to serve the writer as the basis for his principal character.

The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.

Halévy, who had written the text for Bizet's student opera Le docteur Miracle ( 1856 ), was a cousin of Bizet's wife, Geneviève ; he and Meilhac had a solid reputation as the librettists of many of Jacques Offenbach's operettas.

The character was closely modeled after Offenbach's female star Hortense Schneider, and Offenbach's librettist Ludovic Halévy gave Émile Zola the details.

The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux.

He made a favourable impression on the composer and conductor Fromental Halévy, who gave him lessons in composition and orchestration and wrote to Isaac Offenbach in Cologne that the young man was going to be a great composer.

" Among those he recruited at short notice was Ludovic Halévy, the nephew of Offenbach's early mentor Fromental Halévy.

Offenbach's first piece for the company's new home was Ba-ta-clan ( December 1855 ), a well-received piece of mock-oriental frivolity, to a libretto by Halévy.

With a text translated and adapted by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, he presented it during the Mozart centenary celebrations in May 1856 as L ' impresario ; it was popular with the public and also greatly enhanced the critical and social standing of the Bouffes-Parisiens.

The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to an unfortunate detour in understanding the language – a Paris-based orientalist, Joseph Halévy, argued from 1874 onward that Sumerian was not a natural language, but rather a secret code ( a cryptolect ), and for over a decade the leading Assyriologists battled over this issue.

Bizet's marriage to Geneviève Halévy was intermittently happy and produced one son.

The challenge was to set the one-act libretto of Le docteur Miracle by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy.

The prize was awarded jointly to Bizet and Charles Lecocq, a compromise which years later Lecocq criticised on the grounds of the jury's manipulation by Fromental Halévy in favour of Bizet.

Although no action was taken at that time, Bizet remained on friendly terms with the Halévy family.

According to Léon Halévy, Labiche's publisher went bankrupt soon after the novel was out: " A lucky misadventure, for this timely warning of Destiny sent him back to the stage, where a career of success was awaiting him.

After Georges Bizet's death, his widow Geneviève ( daughter of the composer Fromental Halévy ) had an alliance with Delaborde ; indeed there exists the application for registration of a marriage between them, which was never carried out.

Alkan was buried on 1 April ( Easter Sunday ) in the Jewish section of Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, not far from the tomb of his contemporary Fromental Halévy.

In the middle of the 19th century the repertoire was dominated by the popular French composers such as Halévy, Daniel Auber, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, and the Italian composers, Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini and Giuseppe Verdi who had considerable success in Paris.

Ludovic Halévy ( 1 January 1834-7 May 1908 ) was a French author and playwright.

Ludovic Halévy was born in Paris.

His father, Léon Halévy ( 1802 – 1883 ), was a civil servant and a clever and versatile writer, who tried almost every branch of literature — prose and verse, vaudeville, drama, history — without, however, achieving decisive success in any.

The unexpected appearance of the Samaritan led Joseph Halévy to suggest that the parable originally involved " a priest, a Levite, and an Israelite ," in line with contemporary Jewish stories, and that Luke changed the parable to be more familiar to a gentile audience.

It would be quite simply an act of cowardice ", he wrote to Mme Halévy.

" The moral of the story would still hold if the parable originally followed the priest-Levite-Israelite sequence of contemporary Jewish stories, as Halévy suggested.

Élie Halévy would later write on this situation:

At the age of six, Halévy might have been seen playing in that Foyer de la danse with which he was to make his readers so familiar, and, when a boy of twelve, he would often, of a Sunday night, on his way back to the Collège Louis le Grand, look in at the Odéon, where he had free admittance, and see the first act of the new play.

Hérold's opera Ludovic which had not been completed was finished by Fromental Halévy.

Yet as his works spanned the golden age of grand opera, clear traces of his influence can be found in the grand operas of Fromental Halévy, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi and others.

While there, he had the opportunity to hear operas by Meyerbeer and Halévy, which imparted a strong influence on him, especially the latter's La Juive.

* " Toreador Song " ( w. H. Meilac, Ludovic Halévy m. Georges Bizet )-Montague Borwell on Berliner Gramophone

*" Toreador Song " ( w. Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy m. Georges Bizet )-J. W. Myers on Berliner

* The " Couplets du facteur rural " ( verses of the country postman ) in Act 3 of Le château à Toto, French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy ( music by Jacques Offenbach, 1869 ) touch on the merits of the " vélocipède ".

* La Belle Hélène ( Lyrics: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy Music: Jacques Offenbach ) London production opened at the Adelphi Theatre on June 30

At the invitation of Nourrit, Cornélie Falcon made her debut at the age of 18 at the Opéra in the role of Alice on 20 July 1832, and she made a vivid impression on the public, which included on that night Auber, Berlioz, Halévy, Maria Malibran, Giulia Grisi, Honoré Daumier, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo.

He collaborated with Giacomo Meyerbeer on a number of occasions, and also provided the words for works by Giuseppe Verdi, Vincenzo Bellini, Daniel Auber ( La muette de Portici, Gustave III and others ), Fromental Halévy ( including La Juive, Guido et Ginevra, and Le Juif errant ), François-Adrien Boieldieu, Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini ( Le comte Ory ).

The new Théatre Royal de la Monnaie opened on 25 March 1856 with Fromental Halévy ’ s Jaguarita l ' Indienne.

The name of Ludovic Halévy appeared for the first time on the bills on 1 January 1856.

The latter having abruptly retired from the collaboration, Halévy was at a loss how to carry out the contract, when on the steps of the theatre he met Henri Meilhac ( 1831 – 1897 ), then comparatively a stranger to him.

Halévy remained an assiduous frequenter of the Academy, the Conservatoire, the Comédie Française, and the Society of Dramatic Authors, but, when he died in Paris on 7 May 1908, he had produced practically nothing new for many years.

La Juive ( pronounced, meaning The Jewess ) is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe ; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.

It was Ludovic Halévy who invited him to see an operetta with him on February 15, 1878, and took him backstage.

Offenbach's plot – for although Crémieux and Halévy wrote the libretto, the idea was Offenbach's – places Orpheus, the great musician, in the centre ; however, Gilbert's plot focuses on Thespis, the Father of the Drama.