Composer. He abandoned a career as a dentist to become France's last important creator of operettas. Born Francisco Lopez to Basque parents in Montbeliard, he had no formal musical education and learned to play the piano by ear. As a medical student in Paris he supported himself playing jazz in Latin Quarter bars and cabarets, and he wrote songs at night after opening a dental practice in 1940. Bandleader Raymond Legrand took an interest in his tunes and several became hits sung by Maurice Chevalier and Georges Guetary. His first operetta, the old-fashioned but charming "La Belle de Cadiz" (1945), somehow caught the postwar national mood; originally slated for 50 performances, it ran for two years in Paris and sparked renewed interest in the moribund genre. Lopez himself led the trend with such popular works as "Andalusia" (1947), "Quatre Jours a Paris" (1948), "Le Chanteur de Mexico" (1951), "La Route Fleurie" (1952), "Mediterranee" (1955), and "Le Secret de Marco Polo" (1959). Some of these are closer to Broadway than true operetta and foreshadow the "through-composed" musicals fashionable today. The 1960s saw Lopez unconvincingly incorporating elements of rock and roll into his scores, and with the deaths of his key collaborators, librettist Raymond Vincy and singer Luis Mariano, his reputation went into decline. He returned to form as director of the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris from 1972 to 1977, where he produced his final triumphs, "The Three Musketeers" (1974) and "The Volga" (1976). A number of critics expressed the belief that Lopez's death brought to a close the 150 year-old tradition of French operetta.
Composer. He abandoned a career as a dentist to become France's last important creator of operettas. Born Francisco Lopez to Basque parents in Montbeliard, he had no formal musical education and learned to play the piano by ear. As a medical student in Paris he supported himself playing jazz in Latin Quarter bars and cabarets, and he wrote songs at night after opening a dental practice in 1940. Bandleader Raymond Legrand took an interest in his tunes and several became hits sung by Maurice Chevalier and Georges Guetary. His first operetta, the old-fashioned but charming "La Belle de Cadiz" (1945), somehow caught the postwar national mood; originally slated for 50 performances, it ran for two years in Paris and sparked renewed interest in the moribund genre. Lopez himself led the trend with such popular works as "Andalusia" (1947), "Quatre Jours a Paris" (1948), "Le Chanteur de Mexico" (1951), "La Route Fleurie" (1952), "Mediterranee" (1955), and "Le Secret de Marco Polo" (1959). Some of these are closer to Broadway than true operetta and foreshadow the "through-composed" musicals fashionable today. The 1960s saw Lopez unconvincingly incorporating elements of rock and roll into his scores, and with the deaths of his key collaborators, librettist Raymond Vincy and singer Luis Mariano, his reputation went into decline. He returned to form as director of the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris from 1972 to 1977, where he produced his final triumphs, "The Three Musketeers" (1974) and "The Volga" (1976). A number of critics expressed the belief that Lopez's death brought to a close the 150 year-old tradition of French operetta.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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