Aristide Hignard

Aristide Hignard studied at Conservatoire de Paris. Training under Fromental Halévy is recorded. Emmanuel Chabrier and Paul Ivry are recorded as having studied under Aristide Hignard. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera. Distinctions recorded are Prix de Rome.

The son of a shipowner, Hignard was born in Nantes and studied at the Paris Conservatory with Fromental Halévy and won the Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1850 with the cantata Emma et Eginhard. His first comic opera Le Visionnaire was published in 1851. During the 1850s Hignard composed four comic operas, for which his childhood friend Jules Verne provided the librettos. In 1861, the operetta Les Musiciens de l'orchestre was performed, which Hignard had composed together with Léo Delibes and Jules Erlanger (and probably also Jacques Offenbach). For a long time, Hignard worked on his main work, the five-act opera Hamlet based on a libretto by Pierre de Garal. It was premiered in 1868 with great success. He also composed a series of songs (partly based on texts by Verne) as well as waltzes and melodies for the piano. He died in Vernon.

• La Mille et deuxième nuit, opera with libretto by Jules Verne (1850), never performed • Le Visionnaire, opéra-comique in 1 act (1851) • Le Colin-maillard (Jules Verne and Michel Carré), opéra-comique in 1 act (1853) • Les Compagnons de la Marjolaine (J. Verne and M. Carré) opéra-comique in 1 act (1855) • Monsieur de Chimpanzé (J. Verne), operetta (1858) • L'Auberge des Ardennes (J. Verne and M. Carré), opéra-comique in 1 act (1860) • Le Nouveau Pourceaugnac, played at the Bouffes-Parisiens (1860) • Les Musiciens de l'orchestre, a collaboration with Léo Delibes (1861) • Hamlet, opéra (1868) • Rimes et mélodies, on poems by Jules Verne (1857–63)