Jules Barbier

Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré.

Works

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
*Les Saisons
Giacomo Meyerbeer:
*Le pardon de Ploërmel
Jacques Offenbach:
*The Tales of Hoffmann
Camille Saint-Saëns:
*Le timbre d'argent
Ambroise Thomas:
*Hamlet, Mignon and Françoise de 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. Charles 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.