Henri Meilhac (; 23 February 1830 – 6 July 1897) was a prolific French playwright and opera librettist, known for his collaborations with Ludovic Halévy on comic operas with music by Jacques Offenbach. He also wrote occasionally for serious works including Georges Bizet's Carmen (with Halévy) and Jules Massenet's Manon.
Born in Paris, Meilhac began writing for a humorous magazine in 1852, and four years later he began a career as a playwright. In 1860 he collaborated for the first time with Halévy, an old schoolfriend, on a one-act comedy, presented at the Théâtre des Variétés. Over the next twenty-one years the two co-wrote fifty more stage works.
After Halévy retired in 1882 Meilhac continued to write, sometimes as sole author and sometimes with collaborators. His tally of stage works is more than a hundred, and includes short and full-length comic plays and the libretti of twenty-five operettas. He and Halévy wrote the libretti for Offenbach's La belle Hélène (1864), La vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). In addition Meilhac provided libretti for operettas by Charles Lecocq, Hervé, Gaston Serpette and Robert Planquette.
Life and career
Early years
Meilhac was born in what is now the first arrondissement of Paris, on 23 February 1830, the son of François Meilhac, a painter, and his wife, Antoinette Chomé. He was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he did not distinguish himself as a scholar but found a lifelong friend in a fellow student, Ludovic Halévy.
After leaving school he worked as a commercial clerk in bookselling, and then began to write for a living, contributing articles and drawings to the Journal pour rire from 1852 to 1855. He wrote a further seven comedies between then and 1860, when he began to work with co-authors, as was frequently done in the French theatre of the time. His first collaborator was Germain Delavigne but in 1860 he teamed up with his friend Halévy to write a one-act comedy, (What Men Like), presented at the Théâtre des Variétés on 20 April 1861. Between then and 1881 the two collaborated on a further fifty stage works, in between working alone or with other co-authors. A biographer of Meilhac has written:
The critic Henry Fouquier wrote in 1897, "It is agreed that Meilhac was the bold inventor and the audaciously fanciful, while M. Halévy remained the skilful, wise, and level-headed man of the theatre, and the writer of moderation and taste.
The three followed La belle Hélène with two more great successes: La vie parisienne (1866) and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867). Le château à Toto (1868) did less well at the box-office, but La Périchole (1868) was another success. It was based on Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement, a comedy by Prosper Mérimée, who was to feature again in Meilhac and Halévy's work four years later. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and the downfall of the Second Empire caused a strong reaction against Offenbach from the public, who identified him with the fallen regime. He left the country for a time, taking refuge in London and Vienna.
Other composers for whom Meilhac wrote or co-wrote comic opera libretti were Jules Cohen, Auguste Durand, Clémence de Grandval, Hervé, Charles Lecocq, Gaston Serpette and Robert Planquette.