Thomas, (Charles Louis) Ambroise (1811-1896)

French composer. His operas were written to please contemporary bourgeois Parisian taste; his most successful works, Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868), were written in emulation of Gounod. He also wrote numerous cantatas, part songs, and choral pieces.

He learnt music from his father as a child and in 1828 entered the Paris Conservatory, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1832. He also studied piano privately with Friedrich Kalkbrenner and composition with Lesueur. Soon after his return from Rome he began to win operatic successes in Paris. In 1852 he became professor at the Conservatory and in 1871 succeeded Auber as director.

Works Opera La double échelle (1837), Le perruquier de la Régence (1838), Le panier fleuri (1839), Carline (1840), Le Comte de Carmagnola, Le guerillero (1842), Angélique et Médor (1843), Mina, Le Caïd, Le songe d'une nuit d'été (not Shakespeare, 1850), Raymond (1851), La Tonelli, La cour de Célimène (1855), Psyché (1857), Le carnaval de Venise, Le roman d'Elvire (1860), Mignon (after Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, 1866), Gille et Gillotin, Hamlet (after Shakespeare, 1868), Françoise de Rimini (after Dante, 1882).

Ballet La Gipsy (1839), Betty and La tempête (1889).

Choral Messe solennelle (1857), Messe de Requiem, motets; cantata Hermann et Ketty, cantatas for the unveiling of a Lesueur statue and for the Boieldieu centenary.

Other fantasy for piano and orchestra; string quartet, string quintet, piano trio; piano pieces; songs, including six Italian songs, part songs.