The Lighter Classics in Music

    Adolphe-Charles Adam, eminent composer of comic operas, was born in Paris on July 24, 1803. He attended the Paris Conservatory, where he came under the decisive influence of François Boieldieu, under whose guidance he completed his first comic opera, Pierre et Catherine, first produced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on February 9, 1829. His first major success, Le Chalet, was given on September 25, 1834, enjoying almost fifteen hundred performances in Paris before the end of the century.