Alphonse Royer

Alphonse Royer, (10 September 1803 – 11 April 1875) was a French author, dramatist and theatre manager, most remembered today for having written (with his regular collaborator, Gustave Vaëz) the librettos for Gaetano Donizetti's opera La favorite and Giuseppe Verdi's Jérusalem. From 1853 to 1856, he was the director of the Odéon Theatre and from 1856 to 1862 director of the Paris Opéra, after which he was appointed France's Inspecteur Général des Beaux-Arts (Inspector General for the Fine Arts). In his later years, he wrote a six volume history of the theatre and a history of the Paris Opéra. He also translated the theatrical works of the Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi, as well those of the Spanish writers, Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. A Chevalier and later Officier of the Légion d'honneur, Royer died in Paris, the city of his birth, at the age of 71.

Alphonse Royer was born in Paris to a prosperous family with various commercial interests. His father was a commissaire-priseur (auctioneer) and lawyer. As a young man, Royer belonged to a literary circle inspired by Romanticism and Liberalism, movements for which he maintained a sympathy throughout his life. He initially trained to be a lawyer, but was more interested in poetry and the theatre and longed to travel. His father sent him abroad where for several years he travelled in Italy and the Middle East, and carried out several minor diplomatic and business missions. Royer was in Constantinople during the 1826 revolt of the Janissaries against Mahmud II and later wrote an account of it in his 1844 novel, Les janissaires. His experiences during those years also served as the inspirations for several other works, including his novels Venezia la bella (1834) and Robert Macaire en Orient (1840) and a collection of novellas, Un Divan (1834). On his return to Paris, Royer made his literary debut with a novel set in the Middle Ages, Les Mauvais Garçons, which he co-authored with Henri Auguste Barbier. It was published in 1830, the same year as his first venture into drama, Henry V et ses compagnons, co-authored with Auguste Romieu. The play premiered to great success at the Théâtre des Nouveautés on 27 February 1830 with incidental music by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Carl Maria von Weber, and Louis Spohr.

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