Nouguès, Jean

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Nouguès, Jean

Nouguès, Jean, French composer; b. Bordeaux, April 25, 1875; d. Auteuil, Aug. 28, 1932. He showed remarkable precocity as a composer, having completed an opera, Le Roi du Papagey, before he was 16. After regular study in Paris, he premiered his opera Yannha at Bordeaux in 1897. The next 2 operas, Thamyris (Bordeaux, 1904) and La Mort de Tintagiles (Paris, 1905), were brought out without much success; but after the production of his spectacular Quo Vadis? (libretto by H. Cain, after Sienkiewicz’s famous novel; Nice, Feb. 9, 1909), he suddenly found himself famous. The work was given in Paris on Nov. 26, 1909, and in N.Y. on April 4, 1911; had numerous revivals in subsequent years. His later operas, not nearly so successful, included L’Auberge rouge (Nice, Feb. 21, 1910), La Vendetta (Marseilles, 1911), L’Aiglon (Rouen, Feb. 2, 1912), and Le Scarabée bleu (1931).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire