Last Friday marked the 194th anniversary of the death of the great Maltese composer Nicolò Isouard, who died in Paris in 1818.
Isouard conquered the French and his works were successful throughout Europe and even across the Atlantic- Frans Said
Isouard was a very successful composer. He wrote at least 42 comic operas, including Il Barbiere di Siviglia (composed in 1796), which nowadays is better known in the 1816 version by Gioacchino Rossini.
This was not the only case of an opera by Isouard being given a a different version by another composer. His Cendrillon, premiered in Paris on February 11, 1810, was a success throughout Europe but it was later overshadowed by a different version under the title of Cenerentola, also by Rossini, written in 1817.
Nicolas Isouard (he adopted the name Nicolò after he went to France) was descended from a wealthy French family from Marseilles. His great-grandfather was Fortune Isouard, a travelling salesman from Marseilles who married Antonia Maria Xuereb, daughter of a Maltese squire, and who decided to settle in Malta.
Isouard’s grandparents (both born in Malta) were Jacques and Eugenie Isouard Xuereb Frémaux or Formosa, while his parents were Fortune Isouard Xuereb (born in Malta) and Marie-Hélène Rigord Lombard, a native of Marseille.
Isouard had claimed that he was born on the feast of St Nicholas, December 6, 1775 (which accounts for his name). He was raised in a wealthy family where only French was spoken at home but Isouard learned Maltese and Italian with his nannies. He began studying the organ and music theory with Michelangelo Vella (1715-1792) and eventually with the latter’s pupil, Francesco Azopardi.
It is a pity that Isouard’s biography is riddled with inaccuracies. The date of birth, generally accepted to be December 6, 1775, has also been given as May 16, 1773, while the date given on his tomb is 1777. Another mistake refers to his place of birth, which has widely been stated to be Żebbuġ, when in fact he was probably born in Valletta and baptised at St Dominic’s church, although there is a slight possibility that he was born in Floriana, then considered to be an extension of Valletta. Nevertheless, he would still have been baptised in Valletta, as Floriana did not become a parish until some 70 years later.
Some have confused the surname Isouard with that of Xuereb, thinking that Xuereb was a Maltese alternative. The two surnames have no relation to each other except that Isouard and Xuereb happened to be the respective surnames of his great-grandparents.
Isouard studied in Valletta with Francesco Azopardi in Palermo with Giuseppe Amendola, and in Naples with Nicola Sala and Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi. As soon as he came back to Malta from Italy in November 1794 he was appointed maestro di cappella of St John’s Co-Cathedral by Grand Master Emanuel de Rohan. In fact, he had already carried out the duties of assistant organist since he was 16. Also in 1794 he completed his opera Avviso ai Maritati, which was premiered in Florence. In Malta he continued to work on other operas although at that time his compositions were mainly sacred works to lyrics by De Rohan himself.
Between 1794 and 1798, Isouard presented to the Maltese public a number of operas in the style of Domenico Cimarosa. These were: L’Avviso ai Maritati, Artaserse, Rinaldo d’Asti, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L’Improvvisata in Campagna, I Due Avari; Ginevra di Scozia, Il Barone d’Alba Chiara and possibly a ninth opera, Il Bottaio.
Certain sources also mention a tenth opera, namely Casaciello Perseguitato da un Mago (written while he was studying in Italy), which had already been performed in Malta in 1793 in his absence. All were produced both in Malta and in a number of Italian cities, achieving reasonable success.
When the French captured Malta in 1798, Nicolas, already acclaimed as an international composer, and being of French descent, was appointed the first Maltese commissioner and placed in charge of the theatre.
When the French had to leave Malta in September 1800, he decided to move to Paris with General Vaubois, leader of the French garrison on the island. French sources claim that he left in 1799, but this was not possible as the French in Valletta had been blockaded by the British navy.
When he moved to Paris he took the name of Nicolò (de Malte) and worked as a free composer and befriended the composer Rodolphe Kreutzer. The pair worked together on several operas, including Le petit page ou La prison d’état (1800) and Flaminius à Corinthe (1801).
Isouard found rapid success in the field of comic opera with Michel-Ange (1802) and L’intrigue aux fenêtres (1805). He composed regularly for the Opéra-Comique, writing some 30 works for them.
Apart from operas Isouard also composed Masses, motets, cantatas, romances, and duos. Regarding his marriage French sources claim he had already been married in Malta to a certain Partenia Dimech in 1796 but that his marriage had been annulled.
He married in Paris in a civil ceremony, as during the Napoleonic period it was extremely difficult to obtain any papers from Malta. His younger brother Joseph (1794-1863) had a career as a singer and opera director before being named inspector of historic monuments in Rouen.
It is worth mentioning that two of Nicolò’s sister Giulia’s (1792-1873) great-grandsons were the painter and lithographer Alfredo Müller and his younger brother Rodolfo, a champion cyclist.
Isouard enjoyed great success in France. Suffice it to say that his comic opera Les rendez-vous bourgeois, first staged in 1807 was performed over 760 times up to the 1930s. Isouard’s operas were popular during his lifetime and were typical of that period of French history.
Even long after his death, his works have been occasionally performed in Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Rome, London, Brussels, Geneva, Budapest, St Petersburg, Moscow, New Orleans and Philadelphia. The Musical Theatre of Moscow produced Cendrillon in 1998, directed by the Australian conductor Sir Richard Bonynge.
The rise of social and professional status of the young composer during the Consulate and First Empire was amazing. Surrounded by his illustrious fellow French and Italian composers, Isouard conquered the French public and his works were successful throughout Europe and even across the Atlantic. He pandered to public taste and made no attempt to improve his musical language. Its syllables are primary harmonics, yet his words and syntax are correct in the context of his own musical grammar and were deeply influenced by his studies in Malta and Italy.
Guided by his creative intuition, Isouard coloured his musical ideas with an irresistible charm and prodigious melodic fluency in a style which was somewhat pretentious and personal, but expressive, fun, vivacious and very tasteful.
Isouard is reputed to be among the few composers who had notable premieres in Paris. Both his famous premieres were at the Salle Feydeau, which preceded the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique. These were Les rendez-vous bourgeois on May 9, 1807, and Cendrillon on February 22, 1810.
Despite his professional, social and financial success, Isouard felt frustrated and badly rewarded because the Paris Conservatoire had not accepted his candidacy for the position of professor of composition and the Académie Française had not admitted him under the cupola.
The former Opera House should be named after Nicolò Isouard- Frans Said
One must remember that after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 and the installation of Louis XVIII, new trends emerged in Paris and Nicolas had become outdated. Although these setbacks are said to have affected him psychologically, it is claimed that he always had been inclined towards debauchery, even when he still lived in Malta. What is sure is that in Paris he led a dissolute life, becoming a virtual recluse, which in turn caused the breakdown of his marriage.
Isouard died prematurely in Paris on March 23, 1818, aged 42, having been abandoned by his wife Claudine Berthault. He left only two daughters, Sophie-Nicole (1809-1885), a singer and composer, and Annette-Julie (1814-1876), a pianist and composer.
Some claim that Isouard was first buried in the crypt of the Notre Dame des Victoires Basilica in the Île-de-France, Paris. The funeral was attended by his younger brother Joseph and also two family members who signed the death certificate and carried the cushion.
The Isouard family were followed by a large crowd made up of famous musicians, professors of the Paris Conservatoire, performers, friends and admirers. Cherubini, Berton, the playwright Joseph Bernard Delrieu and Etienne Charles William held the cords of the coffin. His two young daughters did not attend the ceremony. They inherited his personal fortune and a considerable part of their grandparents’ estate in Malta.
Another bone of contention is the claim that it was only later that the remains of Isouard were transferred to the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where many famous personalities are buried. Busts of the composer adorn the frontispiece of the façade of the famous Palais Garnier and of the Opéra-Comique, while a street in Paris was given his name, Rue Nicolò. The street is in the 16th arrondissement, in the Muette quarter (on the left side of the Trocadero).
In 1802, together with Cherubini, Mehul, Kreutzer, Rode and Boieldieu, Isouard had founded a music publishing house, in Paris, the Music Store. In Malta, a recital hall in the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, to honour one of its earlier directors, is named Sala Isouard, and streets named after him can be found in Sliema, Mosta, St Paul’s Bay and Marsa.
The very respectable Revue des Deux Mondes in its issue of August 1, 1865, carried an interesting essay on French dramatic music, including a long section on Isouard.
In 1871 the Mosta Band Club was renamed Nicolò Isouard Band Club by its president, Prof. Napoleon Tagliaferro. In 1894, when the band was directed by Antonio Miruzzi, he composed the hymn Omaggio alla Nicolò Isouard. In 2002, the Central Bank of Malta issued the second commemorative coin featuring Nicolò Isouard in its Distinguished Maltese Personalities series.
In 1994 the Bibliothèque Nationale de France acquired the manuscripts of Nicolò, which include works published before 1850, his correspondence with fellow composers, opera performers and major librettists, among whom the French playwright François-Benoît Hoffmann (1760-1828).
A number of studies on Nicolò Isouard have been published, including a voluminous book edited by Canon John Azzopardi and published in 1991 by the Friends of the Cathedral Museum, Mdina, in conjunction with the Alliance Française de Malte.
Notwithstanding all this, relatively few people in Malta are aware of this Maltese composer. I therefore would like to make three suggestions.
First of all, the former Opera House should be named after Nicolò Isouard. Having written some 42 operas, surely this would be the best homage and an honour not only to him but also to the open-air theatre. The new theatre can also include a museum of this great Maltese composer.
Secondly, some of his operas and works which are hardly known in Malta should be revived, also in connection with his forthcoming bicentenary. Indeed, why not inaugurate the new theatre with a production of his Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which had been composed in Malta?
Finally, the University of Malta could carry out an in-depth and authoritative study and eventually make sure that all the mistakes in the various internet sites are corrected for posterity. Properly handled and with adequate publicity, especially in Paris and Europe, the revival of Isouard’s works could attract many cultural visitors to Malta.
My thanks go to Canon John Azzopardi and musicologist Joseph Vella Bondin for their help in writing this feature.