Background
Audran was born on the 11th of April 1842 in Lyon. He was the son of Marius-Pierre Audran (1816–87), who had a career as a tenor at the Opéra-Comique.
In 1861 his family moved to Marseille, where his father accepted the post of singing teacher, later becoming director of the conservatory.
Education
He studied music at the École Niedermeyer under Jules Duprato, where he won the prize for composition in 1859.
Career
He made his first appearance as a dramatic composer at Marseilles with L'Ours et le Pacha (1862), a musical version of one of Scribe's vaudevilles. This was followed by La Chercheuse d'Esprit (1864), a comic opera, also produced at Marseilles.
Audran wrote a funeral march on the death of Meyerbeer, which was performed with some success, and made various attempts to win fame as a writer of sacred music.
He produced a mass (Marseilles, 1873), an oratorio, La Sulamite (Marseilles, 1876), and numerous minor works, but he is known almost entirely as a composer of the lighter forms of opera.
After Audran moved to Paris, most of his stage works were premiered there before being presented abroad, but four of his works were premiered elsewhere: La paradis de Mahomet (Brussels, 1887), Photis (Geneva, 1896), Indiana (Manchester, 1886) and La reine des reines ( Strasbourg, 1896). In Paris, the success of La mascotte (1880) was so great that the intendant of the Bouffes-Parisiens and Audran entered into a five-year contract under which Audran would compose for no other Paris theatre. He worked with a large number of librettists, but his most frequent collaborators were Maxime Boucheron, Chivot, Duru and Maurice Ordonneau. Of one of his collaborations, a critic wrote, "I might dispose of the new three-act comic opera brought out at the Bouffes-Parisiens by simply stating that its title is Pervenche, that its libretto is by MM. Chivot and Duru, its score by M. Edmond Audran, and that both authors and composer have adhered so closely to their well-known style as to necessitate no further call on your space. "
Audran was one of the best of the successors of Offenbach. He had little of Offenbach's humour, but his music is distinguished by an elegance and a refinement of manner which lift it above the level of opera bouffe to the confines of genuine орёга comique. He was a fertile if not a very original melodist, and his orchestration is full of variety, without being obtrusive or vulgar. Many of his operas, La Mascotte in particular, reveal a degree of musicianship which is rarely associated with the ephemeral productions of the lighter stage.
During his last few years, Audran suffered mental and physical illness and was forced to withdraw from Parisian society. He died on the 17th of August 1901 in Tierceville on the north coast of France at the age of 61.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Audran was one of the best of the successors of Jacques Offenbach:
"He had little of Offenbach's humour, but his music is distinguished by an elegance and a refinement of manner which lift it above the level of opera bouffe to the confines of genuine opera comique. He was a fertile if not a very original melodist, and his orchestration is full of variety, without being obtrusive or vulgar. Many of his operas, La mascotte in particular, reveal a degree of musicianship which is rarely associated with the ephemeral productions of the lighter stage. '
In 1957, the critic Philip Hope-Wallace wrote, "Those who attend on seaside bandstands will know the name of Edmond Audran … for his overtures to La Mascotte, La Poupie and Miss Helyett still set the old squares' feet a-tapping. If he never quite shook out of his sleeve any little inspiration which could rival Offenbach he made a very good second best talent go a long way. He himself did not greatly care for La Mascotte . .. thinking his other works more subtle. "