Amédée Dutacq: "Prelude" from Act I of Aristophanes' 'Lysistrata' (Comédie en quatre actes en prose)

Amédée Dutacq (18 July 1848 - 7 January 1929)
“Small, with a bald and already paunchy forehead, despite his youth”, this is how Jacques Derouard describes him in his book Maurice Leblanc, Arsène Lupine spite him [Séguier, 1989] . Amédée -Jean Dutacq was born on July 18, 1848 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, from the legitimate marriage of Armand Dutacq (1810-1856) and Louise-Léonie Zambre. His father, nicknamed by his former secretary Augustin Baudoz "the Napoleon of the press", was in fact one of the creators of the great information press, with the founding in 1836 of the opposition daily Le Siècle , then the purchase of the newspapers Le Droit and the famous satirical illustrated daily Le Charivari . This is how in Le Siècle , subtitled "political, literary and social economy journal", in reality an organ of the militant left which fought the Monarchy, the Empire and the Church, Dutacq serialized several novels by Balzac: Une Fille d'Eve (1838), Béatrix (1939), Pierrette (1840), La Falsse Mistress (1841) and Les Contes drolatiques (1855). The Maison de Balzac museum in Paris keeps in its collections a beautiful full-length photographic portrait of Amand Dutacq (around 1850) by Gustave Le Gray. Eve-Alice Dutacq, sister of Amédée, was married to Gustave Lebret. In 1925, she donated a “portrait of the Dutacq children” to the Musée du Vieux Château de Laval (Mayenne), painted in 1856 by Eugène Quesnet.
Amédée Dutacq studied music at the Paris Conservatory, where he won a 2nd prize in harmony in 1869 and a 2nd prize in counterpoint and fugue in 1874. That same year, he entered César Franck's organ class at the same time as Vincent d'Indy joined the course. Also a composition student of Henri Reber, Dutacq entered the Rome Competition in 1875 with the cantata Clytemnestre , on a text by Roger-Ballu, which received an "honorable mention". The following year he won a first second Grand Prix with the cantata Judith (lyrics by Paul Delair). Hoping to win the Grand Prix, he competed again in 1877, but the subject imposed, Rébecca à la fontaine , a scene for 3 voices by Pierre Barbier, was not very favorable to him and despite a quality interpretation by Mme Lacombre -Duprez, MM. Valdéjo and Dufriche, the Academy of Fine Arts did not award him any prize this time.
Composer and organist, Amédée Dutacq's works have left few traces in the history of music, which has only retained a few: mainly a comic opera in one act, Battez Philidor (words by Abraham Dreyfus), created in 1882 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and performed 10 times in the same theater, and another comedy in 4 acts in prose, preceded by a prologue in verse by Maurice Donnay, entitled Lysistrata (score for piano and vocals published in 1893 by Choudens). Created on December 22, 1892 at the Grand-Théâtre on rue Boudreau (Paris 9th), the same place where actress Cécile Sorel made her debut before winning the Comédie-Française, this comic opera received mixed reviews, at least in terms of concerns the booklet. Donnay was in fact criticized for having distorted Aristophanes' comedy to make it a vaudeville or a sterile operetta: The women of Athens, to shorten the war with Sparta, swear to no longer grant their favors to their husbands or lovers before peace was signed; all coupled with a banal intrigue of adultery between Lysistrata and Agathos. But if the text was not very interesting, the music was of quality. The musicologist Camille Bellaigue highlighted the charm of Dutacq's music, the sumptuous staging, as well as the setting of the third act which "is colored with the hues of peach blossom that over there, in the land of beauty, spreads over the forehead of the temples the first ray of the sun." Among the actors, with Ms. Réjane and Ms. Tessandier, was a certain Lucien Guitry, who had recently arrived from the Théâtre Michel in Saint-Petersburg with his very young son Sacha! On October 30, 1930 at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, this comedy was performed again, with Cora Laparcerie-Richepin in the title role, Robert Hasti, in that of Lycon, and Roger Karl in Agathos. Let us also not forget another lyric drama entitled Floréal (1894), written to the words of the novelist and poet Gilbert-Augustin Thierry (a nephew of the historian), to whom we also owe the libretto of the lyric drama in 4 acts Ghiselle mis in music by César Franck (Choudens, 1896).
Apart from music, Dutacq, was also a painter in his spare time, and interested in public affairs and so he ran in 1894 in the municipal elections of the small town of Vattetot-sur-Mer, located in Normandy in the Pays de Caux. He had been going on holiday to this place for a long time, where he owned the villa "Les Houx", located in the hamlet of Vaucottes. He would settle there permanently. During his three years in office, until 1896, he was notably responsible for the founding of "La Fratenelle de Vattetot-sur-Mer"
Amédée Dutacq died on January 7, 1929 in Fécamp, leaving a widow, born Elisa Magy.