Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nuitter [Truinet], Charles-Louis-Etienne

(b Paris, 24 April 1828; d Paris, 23/24 Feb 1899). French librettist, writer on music and librarian. His real name was Truinet, of which ‘Nuitter’ is an anagram. He studied law and by 1849 was practising in Paris. In the 1850s he began writing librettos in his spare time. His first performed work, a vaudeville entitled L’amour dans un ophicléide (1854), was followed by more vaudevilles and later by operas, opéras comiques, opéras bouffes, operettas and ballets. Usually writing with collaborators, in particular Beaumont (Alexandre Beaume), Nérée Desarbres and Etienne Tréfeu, he produced more than 60 works, many of which reveal facility and wit. He wrote for Offenbach (Les bavards, Vert-vert, La princesse de Trébizonde and many more), Delibes (La source, Coppélia), Guiraud (Le Kobold, Gretna-Green, Piccolino), Lalo (Namouna), Lecocq (Le coeur et la main) and at least 18 other composers. One of the first Frenchmen to appreciate Wagner, he translated Tannhäuser (with E. Roche and R. Lindau, 1861), Rienzi (with Jules Guillaume, 1869), Lohengrin (1870) and Der fliegende Holländer (1872). His other translations (most with collaborators) include Weber’s Oberon (1857), Preciosa (1858) and Abu Hassan (1859), Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1859), Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (1865) and Verdi’s Macbeth (1865), Aida (1877), La forza del destino (1883) and Simon Boccanegra (1883). In about 1863 Nuitter began to catalogue the Opéra archives and in 1866 he became official archivist there, abandoning his law career. With Théodore Lajarte he reorganized the archives and the Opéra library. He rescued many documents from destruction, ensured that the Palais Garnier (completed in 1875) had adequate facilities for the archives and library, and, often at his own expense, acquired compositions, autographs, documents and an important collection of journals for the Opéra. He wrote, in a journalistic style, books on opera and the Opéra including Le nouvel Opéra (Paris, 1875), Histoire et description du nouvel Opéra (Paris, 1883) and, in collaboration with Ernest Thoinan (A.E. Roquet), Les origines de l’Opéra français (Paris, 1886/R); various articles (notably in La chronique musicale) describe little-known works in the Opéra’s collection.

LIBRETTOS

(selective list)

for fuller list see GroveO

Une nuit à Séville (oc, with Beaumont [A. Beaume]), F. Barbier, 1855; Rose et Narcisse (oc, with Beaumont), Barbier, 1855; Les bavards [Bavard et bavarde] (opéra bouffe), Offenbach, 1863; Il signor Fagotto (opérette, with E. Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1864; Le fifre enchanté [Le soldat magicien] (opérette bouffe, with Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1864; Le lion de Saint Marc (opéra bouffe with Beaumont), E. Legouix, 1864; Jeanne qui pleure et Jean qui rit (opérette, with Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1865; Une fantasia (opérette), Hervé, 1865; Les oreilles de Midas (opérette, with Desarbres), Barbier, 1866; La source (ballet, with A. Saint-Léon), Delibes and Minkus, 1866; Les jumeaux de Bergame (ballet-arlequinade, with L. Mérante), T. Lajarte, 1866; Cardillac (oc, with Beaumont), L. Dautresme, 1867; Le vengeur (opéra bouffe, with Beaumont), Legouix, 1868

Le dernier jour de Pompeï (opéra, with Beaumont), V. Joncières, 1869; La princesse de Trébizonde (opéra bouffe, with Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1869; Vert-vert (oc, with H. Meilhac), Offenbach, 1869; Le Kobold (oc, with L. Gallet), E. Guiraud, 1870; Coppélia, ou La fille aux yeux d’émail (ballet, with Saint-Léon), Delibes, 1870; Boule de neige (opéra bouffe, with Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1871; Le corsaire noir (oc/bouffe, with Offenbach and Tréfeu), Offenbach, 1872; Gretna Green (ballet-pantomime, with Mérante), Guiraud, 1873; Piccolino (oc, with V. Sardou), Guiraud, 1876; Le coeur et la main (oc, with Beaumont), C. Lecocq, 1882; Namouna (ballet, with Petipa), E. Lalo, 1882; La volière (opérette, with Beaumont), Lecocq, 1888

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ES (F. Lesure)

FétisB

LoewenbergA

MGG1 (A. Ménetrat)

A. Feldmann: Truinet, Charles Nuitter (Paris, 1900) [notice read to the Association amicale des secrétaires … de la Conférence des avocats de Paris]

U. Günther and G. Carrara Verdi, eds.: ‘Der Briefwechsel Verdi-Nuitter-Du Locle zur Revision des Don Carlos’, AnMc, no.14 (1974), 414–44; no.15 (1975), 334–401

F. Patureau: Le Palais Garnier dans la société parisienne, 1875–1914 (Liège, 1991)

JEFFREY COOPER

Numantino, Martín de Tapia.

See Tapia, Martín de.

Number opera

(Ger. Nummernopera; It. opera a numeri).

Term for an opera consisting of individual sections or ‘numbers’ which can readily be detached from the whole, as distinct from an opera consisting of continuous music. The term is best applied to the various forms of 18th-century opera, including opera seria, opera buffa, opéra comique, ballad opera and Singspiel as well as to some 19th-century grand operas. Under the influence of Wagner’s ideas about the relationship between opera and drama, the number opera became unfashionable, and neither his operas nor those of late Verdi, Puccini and the verismo school can be so called, although arias can easily be detached (at the point designed to accommodate the applause). In spite of the widespread adherence to Wagner’s aesthetic of continuous music drama, some notable 20th-century works can be considered number operas, such as Berg’s Wozzeck (1925) and Stravinsky’s deliberately archaic The Rake’s Progress (1951).

For bibliography see Opera, §VII.