Désiré Dihau

Désiré Dihau
Les Vieilles Histoires... Pour toi ! Portrait of Désiré Dihau (1893) Lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Born	Désiré Hippolyte Dihau 2 August 1833 Lille
Died	20 August 1909(1909-08-20) (aged 76) Paris
Occupation	Bassoonist Composer

Désiré Dihau (2 August 1833 – 20 August 1909) was a French bassoonist and composer. He was the bassonist painted by Edgar Degas in L'Orchestre de l'Opéra () with the cellist Louis-Marie Pilet seated behind him.

Désiré Hippolyte Dihau was born 2 August 1833 in Lille. He studied music at the Conservatory of his hometown and then at the Conservatoire de Paris where he obtained a First prize of bassoon in 1857 and a second one in 1865. He was at the pulpits of the orchestras of the Théâtre-Lyrique and of the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. He was also a solo bassoon at the Eldorado, the Cirque d'hiver of Paris for the Pasdeloup Orchestra and at the Théâtre du Châtelet for the Concerts Colonne.

He is best known for being the bassoonist of the Paris Opera, where he played from July 1, 1862 to December 31, 1889, immortalized by Edgar Degas in the 1870 painting, L'Orchestre de l'Opéra (), preceded by a sketch kept at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Degas also depicted him in other paintings in which were present the musicians of the Salle Le Peletier, Musiciens à l'orchestre () in 1872 and both versions, of 1871 and 1876, of the ballet of Robert le Diable. Degas probably met Dihau at the Mère Lefebvre, rue de La Tour-d'Auvergne () in Montmartre where artists and musicians gathered. It is Dihau who introduced Degas to the opera where the painter found his strongest inspiration in the spectacle of the dancers he so often painted.