Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (Metz 5 August 1811 - Paris, 12 February 1896) was a French opera composer, best-known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868, after Shakespeare) and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871-1896.
Ambroise's parents were music teachers and prepared him to become a musician. By age 10 he was already an excellent pianist and violinist. In 1828, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Jean-François Le Sueur while at the same time continuing his piano studies privately with the famous virtuoso pianist Frédéric Kalkbrenner. In 1832, his cantata Hermann et Ketty won the Conservatory's prestigious composition prize, the Grand Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to and study in that city for three years. He took with him a love for Mozart and Beethoven but once in Rome became an ardent admirer of the Italian cantilena and melodic tradition. It was during his Italian sojourn that he wrote all of his chamber music--a piano trio, a string quintet and a string quartet, all of which reflect his new style of writing.
His first opera, La double échelle (1837), was produced at the Opéra Comique and was a success, receiving 247 performances before it left the stage. Le caïd (1849), his first undisputed triumph, glittered with Rossini-inspired score and achieved over 400 performances before the turn of the century. For the next quarter of a century Thomas's productivity was incessant, and most of his operatic works belonging to this period enjoyed a great, if ephemeral, popularity. They are hampered by their libretti, but a few of them are occasionally revived as historic curiosities or recorded as vehicles for bel canto singers: Le songe d'une nuit d'été (1850; loosely adapted from Shakespeare), Psyché (1857). Some of his overtures appear on concert programs: the overture to Raymond (1851), for instance, receives the occasional revival.
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025 Ambroise Dance Fantastique