Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi
Encyclopedia
Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi, also known by the pseudonym Norbert Lorédan, (21 November 1865 – 30 January 1943) was a French theatre director, librettist, journalist and writer. He was born in Toulouse
and died in Paris.
, Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi studied at the college in Castres
, where he met Jean Jaurès
, who was at that time a tutor there, and became a friend of the doctor and scholar François de Vesian. He went to study law in Toulouse.
In 1887–1888, at the instigation of Laurent Tailhade
, Gheusi worked on the revue Le Décadent, but his literary career struggled to take off, despite the recommendations of Émile Zola
and Catulle Mendès
.
Gheusi was involved in republican politics and joined the electoral campaign of Jaurès in the legislative elections of 1889 in Castres. In the following years, the government called on his services from time to time. In 1897, Ernest Constans sent him on an inspection tour of Christian schools in Palestine. After a short period at the Ministère des Colonies in 1906, beside Georges Leygues
(also from south west France), he was charged by Jean Cruppi
, then minister of Foreign Affairs, to work in 1911 for the restoration of diplomatic relations between France and Venezuela.
In 1894, he married Adrienne Willems, nièce of the painter Florent Willems
and frequented, alongside many free-thinkers and free-masons, the Luscrambo, an association which grouped the Toulousains of Paris, founded by the singer and future director of the Opéra Pedro Gailhard.
His novel Gaucher Myrian, written in collaboration with the Bordeaux intellectual and musicologist Anatole Loquin was published in 1893, and attests to his interest in catharism. In 1906, he became a member of the Eglise gnostique catholique, alongside Léonce-Eugène Fabre des Essarts and Gabriel Fauré
.
In 1897, Arthur Meyer
entrusted him with the direction of the illustrated literary supplement of the Gaulois which had just been created with the title Le Gaulois du dimanche. In 1899, he bought the Nouvelle Revue from Juliette Adam
. Under his direction, this periodical enjoyed a particularly brilliant period.
In 1911, he acquired the castle of the Baron, Albert de L'Espée, at Ilbarritz
, by Biarritz
at auction, and envisaged making a golf course; the 1914 war stopped the works and he transformed the house into a hospital for repatriated injured soldiers during the First World War. He himself served as subalterne/officier d'ordonnance of Gallieni.
Pedro Gailhard had called him to serve in the direction of the Paris Opéra in 1906 and in 1914, he became director of the l'Opéra Comique
, alongside Émile
and Vincent
Isola. He was suddenly removed in 1918 by his sworn enemy Clemenceau
. After a short time running the Théâtre Lyrique du Vaudeville
(1919–1920), he became editor of Figaro
and soon was promoted to administrative director. He was especially entrusted by the new proprietor, François Coty
, with organizing the merger with Le Gaulois
in 1929, before leaving in 1932.
In that year Anatole de Monzie
, Minister of Public Instruction and Beaux-Arts, nominated him again Director of the Opéra-Comique which was in a financial crisis. Gheusi used his own funds to assist the theatre, but he was forced to resign at the time of the strikes of 1936.
He died in Paris on 30 January 1943. His memoirs, Cinquante Ans de Paris, are a precious document on the political life under the Third Républic
.
Novels
Historical
Other
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
and died in Paris.
Biography
A son of a banker and distant cousin of GambettaLéon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
, Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi studied at the college in Castres
Castres
Castres is a commune, and arrondissement capital in the Tarn department and Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It lies in the former French province of Languedoc....
, where he met Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
, who was at that time a tutor there, and became a friend of the doctor and scholar François de Vesian. He went to study law in Toulouse.
In 1887–1888, at the instigation of Laurent Tailhade
Laurent Tailhade
Laurent Tailhade was a French satirical poet, anarchist polemicist, essayist, and translator, active in Paris in the 1890s and early 1900s...
, Gheusi worked on the revue Le Décadent, but his literary career struggled to take off, despite the recommendations of Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
and Catulle Mendès
Catulle Mendès
Catulle Mendès was a French poet and man of letters.Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, he was born in Bordeaux. He early established himself in Paris and promptly attained notoriety by the publication in the Revue fantaisiste of his Roman d'une nuit, for which he was condemned to a month's...
.
Gheusi was involved in republican politics and joined the electoral campaign of Jaurès in the legislative elections of 1889 in Castres. In the following years, the government called on his services from time to time. In 1897, Ernest Constans sent him on an inspection tour of Christian schools in Palestine. After a short period at the Ministère des Colonies in 1906, beside Georges Leygues
Georges Leygues
Georges Leygues was a French politician of the Third Republic. During his time as Minister of Marine he worked with the navy's chief of staff Henri Salaun in unsuccessful attempts to gain naval re-armament priority for government funding over army rearmament such as the Maginot Line.He was born...
(also from south west France), he was charged by Jean Cruppi
Jean Cruppi
Jean Cruppi was a French politician of the Third Republic....
, then minister of Foreign Affairs, to work in 1911 for the restoration of diplomatic relations between France and Venezuela.
In 1894, he married Adrienne Willems, nièce of the painter Florent Willems
Florent Joseph Marie Willems
-Biography:Willems was born at Liège. He had no regular tuition in painting, but learnt by copying and restoring old pictures at Mechelen, where he lived from 1832. He made his debut at the Brussels Salon in 1842 with a Music Party and an Interior of a 17th-century Guard-room in the style of Gerard...
and frequented, alongside many free-thinkers and free-masons, the Luscrambo, an association which grouped the Toulousains of Paris, founded by the singer and future director of the Opéra Pedro Gailhard.
His novel Gaucher Myrian, written in collaboration with the Bordeaux intellectual and musicologist Anatole Loquin was published in 1893, and attests to his interest in catharism. In 1906, he became a member of the Eglise gnostique catholique, alongside Léonce-Eugène Fabre des Essarts and Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
.
In 1897, Arthur Meyer
Arthur Meyer
Arthur Meyer may refer to:* Arthur Meyer , French journalist.* Arthur Meyer , German botanist....
entrusted him with the direction of the illustrated literary supplement of the Gaulois which had just been created with the title Le Gaulois du dimanche. In 1899, he bought the Nouvelle Revue from Juliette Adam
Juliette Adam
Juliette Adam Juliette Adam Juliette Adam (4 October 1836, Verberie (Oise) – 23 August 1936, Callian (Var), also known by her maiden name Juliette Lambert, was a French author and feminist.- Biography :...
. Under his direction, this periodical enjoyed a particularly brilliant period.
In 1911, he acquired the castle of the Baron, Albert de L'Espée, at Ilbarritz
Bidart
Bidart is a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is located in the traditional Basque province of Labourd.-References:* -External links:* Information available in Spanish...
, by Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
at auction, and envisaged making a golf course; the 1914 war stopped the works and he transformed the house into a hospital for repatriated injured soldiers during the First World War. He himself served as subalterne/officier d'ordonnance of Gallieni.
Pedro Gailhard had called him to serve in the direction of the Paris Opéra in 1906 and in 1914, he became director of the l'Opéra Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, alongside Émile
Émile Isola
Émile Isola was born on 4 September 1860 in Blida, Algeria and died in Paris on 17 May 1945. Along with his younger brother Vincent Isola with whose life and career he was closely involved, he was a conjurer and theatre director in Paris; they were known as the Frères Isola – the Isola...
and Vincent
Vincent Isola
Vincent Isola was born on 24 July 1862 in Blida, Algeria and died in Paris on 31 August 1947. Along with his older brother Émile Isola with whose life and career he was closely involved, he was a conjurer and theatre director in Paris; they were known as the Frères Isola – the Isola...
Isola. He was suddenly removed in 1918 by his sworn enemy Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
. After a short time running the Théâtre Lyrique du Vaudeville
Théâtre du Vaudeville
The Théâtre du Vaudeville was a theatre in Paris. It opened on 12 January 1792 on rue de Chartres. Its directors, Piis and Barré, mainly put on "petites pièces mêlées de couplets sur des airs connus", including vaudevilles....
(1919–1920), he became editor of Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
and soon was promoted to administrative director. He was especially entrusted by the new proprietor, François Coty
François Coty
François Coty was a French perfume manufacturer, newspaper publisher, and founder of the fascist league Solidarité Française...
, with organizing the merger with Le Gaulois
Le Gaulois
Le Gaulois was a French daily newspaper, founded in 1868 by Edmond Tarbe and Henri de Pene. After a printing stoppage, it was revived by Arthur Meyer in 1882 with notable collaborators Paul Bourget, Alfred Grévin, Abel Hermant, and Ernest Daudet...
in 1929, before leaving in 1932.
In that year Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie was a French administrator, encyclopaedist , political figure and scholar. His father was a tax collector in Bazas, Gironde where Anatole - a name he disliked from an early age - was born in 1876...
, Minister of Public Instruction and Beaux-Arts, nominated him again Director of the Opéra-Comique which was in a financial crisis. Gheusi used his own funds to assist the theatre, but he was forced to resign at the time of the strikes of 1936.
He died in Paris on 30 January 1943. His memoirs, Cinquante Ans de Paris, are a precious document on the political life under the Third Républic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
.
Works of Pierre-Barthélemy Gheusi
Stage and opera- La Fée aux roses, (saynète) by Norbert Lorédan, 1888
- La Veillée de Jeanne d'Arc, Scène lyrique for soprano, men’s chorus and orchestra, with Ernest Lefèvre, (around 1890)
- Rayon d'onyx, Poème for the stage, 1890
- Le Carillon, opéra in 3 acts, in collaboration with J. Méry, music by J. Ulrich, Aix-en-ProvenceAix-en-ProvenceAix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, 15 September 1895 - Damayanti, légende lyrique in 1 act, music by Lucien Fontayne, Grand-Théâtre de MarseilleOpéra de MarseilleL’Opéra de Marseille, known today as the Opéra Municipal, is an opera company located in Marseille, France. In 1685, the city was the second in France after Bordeaux to have an opera house which was erected on a tennis court....
, 7 May 1895 - Ermessinde, opéra in 2 acts and 3 tableaux
- Guernica, drame lyrique in 3 acts, with Pedro Gailhard, music by Paul VidalPaul VidalPaul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...
, Opéra-comique, 5 June 1895 - Carloman, drame lyrique in 3 acts, 1896
- Kermaria, idylle d'Armorique in 3 acts with a prologue, Paris Opéra-comique, 1897
- Faublas, opéra, music by Camille ErlangerCamille ErlangerCamille Erlanger was a Parisian-born French opera composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Léo Delibes and Émile Durand, and in 1888 won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Velléda...
, 1897 - La Cloche du Rhin, drame lyrique in 3 actes, with Georges Montorgueil, music by Samuel Rousseau, Opéra de Paris, May 1898
- Le Comte Roger, drame in 4 acts, avec Édouard Noël, l'Athénée, Paris, 28 June 1900
- Le Juif Polonais, opéra 3 acts and 6 tableaux, in collaboration with Henri Cain after Erckmann-Chatrian, music by Camille ErlangerCamille ErlangerCamille Erlanger was a Parisian-born French opera composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Léo Delibes and Émile Durand, and in 1888 won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Velléda...
, Opéra-Comique, 11 April 1900 - Les Barbares, tragédie lyrique in 3 acts and a prologue, with Victorien SardouVictorien SardouVictorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
, music by Camille Saint-SaënsCamille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, Opéra de Paris, 23 October 1901 - Orsola, drame lyrique in 3 acts, music by Paul and Lucien Hillemacher, Opéra de Paris, 14 May 1902
- Trilby, féerie in one act, with Charles Lomon, Comédie-FrançaiseComédie-FrançaiseThe Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
, 1904 - Çanta, tragédie lyrique in 3 acts and 4 tableaux, after the BrahmanaBrahmanaThe Brāhmaṇas are part of the Hindu śruti literature. They are commentaries on the four Vedas, detailing the proper performance of rituals....
and the RamayanaRamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
, with J. Fonville, music by Pierre Kunc, Paris music competition. 1900–1903 - Fiorella, comédie lyrique in 1 act, with Victorien Sardou, 1905
- Chacun sa vie, comédie in 3 acts, with Gustave Guiches, Comédie-Française, 10 September 1907
- Le Miracle, drame lyrique in 5 acts, with André Mérane, music by Georges-Adolphe Hué, Opéra de Paris, 1 December 1910
- Perkain, drame lyrique in 3 acts, Basque legend after Pierre Harispe, music by Jean Poueigh, 1931
Novels
- Gaucher Myrian, vie aventureuse d'un escholier féodal. Salamanque, Toulouse et Paris au XIIIe siècle, with Paul Lavigne, 1893
- L'Âme de Jeanne Darc, roman épisodique de la guerre de cent ans, 1895
- Le Serpent de mer, roman à clés, 1899
- Montsalvat 1890–1910
- La Mamelouke, roman d'un officier de Bonaparte en Égypte et en Syrie, 1905
- Biarritz-des-Goélands, 1905
- Le Puits des âmes, 1906
- L'Opéra romanesque, 1910
- Les Pirates de l'Opéra, 1911
- Le Mascaret rouge, 1931
- Les Amours de Faublas, novel in 7 chapters after Louvet de Couvray, 1938
- La Fille de Monte-Cristo, 1948
Historical
- Gambetta, par Gambetta, lettres intimes et souvenirs de famille publiés par P.-B. Gheusi, 1909
- Gallieni 1849–1916, 1922
- La Gloire de Gallieni. Comment Paris fut sauvé. Le Testament d'un soldat, 1928
- Gallieni et Madagascar, Paris ; 1931
- La Vie et la Mort singulières de Gambetta, 1932
- Le Roman de Gambetta, 1938
- La Vie prodigieuse du maréchal Gallieni, 1939
Other
- Quelques pages d'un vieil album, 1889
- Le Blason héraldique, manuel nouveau de l'art héraldique, de la science du blason et de la polychromie féodale, d'après les règles du moyen âge, 1892
- Simplement, poèmes, 1895
- Midi. Silhouettes : E. Barbey, Constans, Gailhard, Gallieni, Mgr Gazaniol, Jean Jaurès, Georges Leygues, Verdi, Paul Vidal, Emma Calvé, Aïno Ackté, etc. Théâtre, paysages et légendes, de l'Opéra à la mosquée d'Omar, 1900
- Sous le volcan, 1903
- Les Atlantes, aventures de temps légendaires, with Charles Lomon, 1905
- Les Chefs, études politiques et de théâtre, 1914
- Guerre et théâtre, 1914–1918. Mémoires d'un officier du général Gallieni et journal parisien du directeur du théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique pendant la guerre, 1919
- L'Opéra-Comique pendant la guerre, 1919
- L'Affaire de l'Opéra-Comique et l'Opéra-Comique de Lafferre, 1923
- Les Tueurs de rois, 1926
- Jeanne Myrtale. Jean Moulierat, avec Thomas Salignac, 1933
- L'Opéra-Comique sous la haine, Paris, 1937
- Cinquante ans de Paris, mémoires d'un témoin, 1889–1938, 1939, 4 volumes
- La Femme nue du Montcalm, 1945.