GRETRY Andre (G-80)

Composer from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (present-day Belgium), who worked from 1767 onwards in France and took French nationality. He is most famous for his opéras comiques. Altogether he composed some fifty operas. His masterpieces are Zémire et Azor and Richard Coeur-de-lion—the first produced in 1771, the second in 1784. The composer himself was influenced by the great events he witnessed, and the titles of some of his operas, such as La rosière républicaine and La fête de la raison, sufficiently indicate the epoch to which they belong; but they are mere pièces de circonstance, and the republican enthusiasm displayed is not genuine. Little more successful was Grétry in his dealings with classical subjects. His genuine power lay in the delineation of character and in the expression of tender and typically French sentiment.