Louise Bertin was born in 1805 at the Château des Roches, near Bièvres (Essonne). The property had been purchased in 1804 by her father, Louis-François Bertin, who was co-editor in chief of the Journal des débats with his brother Bertin de Veaux. Her mother, pianist Geneviève Boutard, was most likely her first teacher. François-Joseph Fétis was her voice instructor. The young Louise Bertin had a passion for opera, and also asked Fétis to teach her composition – which she studied further under Anton Reicha. In 1825, her opéra-comique Guy Mannering (on her own libretto, based on Walter Scott) was performed at her parents’ château. The positive reception led to her composing the music for a libretto by Scribe et Mazères, Le Loup-Garou, which was performed at the Opéra-Comique in 1827. She then turned to Goethe’s Faust, first with a single-scene opera, Ultima scena di Fausto, followed by an opera, Fausto (on her own libretto), which was performed at the Théâtre-Italien in 1831. She then planned an opera based on the novel Notre-Dame de Paris. Victor Hugo, a dear friend, wrote the libretto himself. La Esmeralda was first performed at the Paris Opera on 14 November 1836, with the famous Cornélie Falcon in the title role. It was a failure. Beyond its intrinsic qualities – particularly Bertin’s obvious dramatic talent – the work became the object of a political face-off between the opponents and proponents of king Louis-Philippe, with the Bertin family among the latter. Louise Bertin then moved away from opera, hosting a musical salon and putting on concert performances of some of her works. In 1840, she published Six Ballades, adapted from her own poems. Her five chamber symphonies are thought lost, as are her twelve cantatas and her Prière avec chœur. She also found acclaim as a poet, receiving a prize from the Académie Française in 1842 for her collection Les Glanes.
It should be noted that several mélodies and piano pieces attributed to her are in fact by composer Louise Bertin, née Lalanne.

– Florence Launay –

[Traduction en anglais : Raphaël Meyer]