Charles Cuvillier

Charles Cuvillier (24 April 1877 – 14 February 1955) was a French composer of operetta. He won his greatest successes with the operettas La reine s’amuse (1912, played as The Naughty Princess in London) and with The Lilac Domino, which became a hit in 1918 in London. Biography Cuvillier was born in Paris, and studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gabriel Fauré and Jules Massenet. He began writing for the Paris musical stage and had a success with Avant-hier matin (1905), a small scale work with piano accompaniment. Later stage works to achieve success in France and abroad included Son p’tit frère (1907), his first collaboration with André Barde, and La reine s’amuse (1912). Cuvillier fought in the trenches against Germany during the war, and thereafter made his career in France and the U.K. His greatest international success was the operetta The Lilac Domino, originally Der lila Domino (Leipzig, 1912). The critic Andrew Lamb writes that Cuvillier composed “light, insinuating music, distinguished by typically French phrasing.” Cuvillier also composed film music, including Mon amant l’assassin (1931), Occupe-toi d’Amélie (1932) and (1935). Cuvillier died in Paris in 1955, at the ag