Guiraud, Ernest
Guiraud, Ernest
Guiraud, Ernest, French composer; b. New Or-leans, June 23, 1837; d. Paris, May 6, 1892. He studied with his father, Jean Baptiste Guiraud, and produced his first opera, Le Roi David, in New Orleans at the age of 15. He then went to Paris, which was his home for the rest of his life. He studied at the Cons, with Marmontel (piano) and Halévy (composition), winning the Grand Prix de Rome in 1859 with his cantata Bajazet et le joueur de flute. He stayed in Rome for 4 years, then returned to Paris, where his 1-act opera Sylvie was produced at the Opera-Comique (May 11, 1864). He was appointed a prof, at the Cons, in 1876, numbering among his stu-dents Debussy, Gédalge, and Loeffler. He wrote the recitatives to Bizet’s Carmen and completed the orchestration of Offenbach’s Les Conies d’Hoffmann. His operas (all 1st perf. in Paris) include En prison (March 5,1869), Le Kobold (July 2,1870), Madame Turlupin (Nov. 23, 1872), Piccolino (April 11, 1876; his most popular stage work), Galante aventure (March 23,1882), and Fredegonde (completed by Saint-Saëns; Dec. 18, 1895). He also wrote a ballet, Gretna Green (Paris, May 5, 1873), 2 suites for Orch. (c. 1871,1886), and Caprice for Violin and Orch. (c. 1885). He publ. a treatise on instrumentation (Paris, 1892).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire