Louis Joseph Saint-Amans

Louis Joseph Claude Saint-Amans (Marseilles, 1749 – Paris, c. 1820) was a French composer whose career spanned almost exactly the same period as that of Grétry, the great name of French comic opera in his day. His significance lies chiefly as an example of a competent musician who was overshadowed by more successful contemporaries, and whose work sat uneasily with the taste that prevailed towards the end of the eighteenth century.

He abandoned his law studies to tour the south of France with an Italian company performing opera buffa. He then spent three years in Italy as tutor to the sons of a Swiss baron, a period during which he studied the music of several Italian composers. This contact led him to resolve to devote himself to opera and to settle in Paris, where he arrived in 1769. The following year he staged his first comic opera, Dom Alvar et Mincia, at the Comédie-Italienne. Neither this work nor two others written for the same theatre enjoyed particular success, and he turned his attention to the Opéra, where he composed several ballets and tragédies, most of which were never performed. He did, however, receive commissions to write the French recitatives and ballets for Sacchini's L'olympiade in 1777.

In 1778 he moved to Brussels, where for six years he directed the Théâtre de la Monnaie and composed new works that were well received. On returning to Paris he was appointed singing professor at the Ecole Royale de Chant, which later became the Conservatoire. He continued writing comic operas into the early years of the nineteenth century. The loss of his post at the Conservatoire and his move to Brest coincide with a probable abandonment of stage composition during his last fifteen years, although it is not known with certainty whether this became permanent.

He also wrote religious music, including motets, oratorios and a Te Deum composed for the celebrations of Napoleon's birthday in 1807, as well as a modest number of instrumental works, few of which stand out for their inspiration or design.

His legacy is today modest. Contemporary critics noted the lack of melodic invention and harmonic elaboration in his music, although Burney praised the overture to Dom Alvar et Mincia. His adaptations of works by Vadé, Duni and Favart, such as Le poirier, Ninette à la cour and La fée Urgèle, met with greater success, but the charming simplicity of these models had fallen out of fashion by the late eighteenth century. Saint-Amans thus serves as a testament to both the competence and the limitations of French comic opera during the transition between the Ancien Régime and the First Empire.