Goddaughter of Alfred de Vigny, she was first a prodigy pianist but also learned the organ, the clarinet and singing before being a student of César Franck in composition. Her works were praised by Liszt, always generous, and even Debussy, who was not, and Saint-Saëns proposed to her in vain. Her musical activities did not prevent her from having five children with the writer Catullus Mendès and to enlist as an ambulance driver during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Augusta Holmes in her study under the portrait of Richard Wagner. Palazzetto Bru Zane
Disappeared from the directory
An admirer of Wagner, in 1876 she attended the inauguration of the Bayreuth Festival Hall and the premiere of the Tetralogy. Like him, she believes in the total work of art, writes the libretto of her operas and uses leitmotifs but her music remains linked to the French school, from Meyerbeer to Massenet.
Unable to have her first three operas performed, she took thirteen years to get her fourth, “La Montagne Noire,” completed in 1882, to be premiered at the Paris Opera. She was only the third woman to have this honor after Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre in 1694 and Louise Bertin in 1836. The President of the Republic Félix Faure and the Minister of Public Education Raymond Poincaré attended the first on February 8, 1895 but, after 13 performances, the work disappeared from the repertoire… like many others.
Dominique Pitoiset, the director, in rehearsal. Frédéric Desmesure
It was exhumed at the Dortmund Opera in 2024 on the initiative of the French romantic music center Palazzetto Bru Zane which will record it in Bordeaux. The critics heard “a voluptuous orchestration” that the ONBA, directed by Pierre Dumoussaud will make shine, “seductive vocal lines” and “the astonishing incarnation of the role of Yamina by Aude Extrémo” which we will find in Bordeaux alongside tenor Julien Henric.
From studio to show
Dominique Pitoiset, who was director of the Bordeaux Aquitaine National Theater from 2004 to 2013, is in charge of the staging: “I am very happy to return to Bordeaux but don’t expect a real production like the one I did in ‘‘Salomé’ by Richard Strauss during the opening of the Auditorium in 2013. I am only responsible, in five days and respecting the ‘‘zero purchase” approach, of allowing the public to discover a work intended to be recorded. So I chose to show behind the scenes, to gradually transform a recording studio into a show. Fortunately, the cast is of exceptional quality and Augusta Holmès is a very interesting writer.
We won’t spoil the plot: it’s so rare not to know the ending when you go to the opera!
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