Jules Barbier

Who was Jules Barbier?

Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré. He was a noted Parisian bon vivant and man of letters.

His libretti for extant operas include:

Charles Gounod:

La Colombe, Faust, Le médecin malgré lui, Philémon et Baucis, Polyeucte, La reine de Saba and Roméo et Juliette

Victor Massé:

Galathée

Giacomo Meyerbeer:

Le pardon de Ploërmel

Jacques Offenbach:

The Tales of Hoffmann

Camille Saint-Saëns:

Le timbre d'argent

Ambroise Thomas:

Hamlet, Mignon and Francesca da Rimini.

He also wrote the libretto for La Guzla de l'Émir, a one-act comic opera by Georges Bizet. This was never performed and probably destroyed.

He wrote the scenario for Léo Delibes' ballet Sylvia.

Gounod wrote incidental music to Barbier's play Jeanne d'Arc, and the libretto to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans was partially based on it.