Adolphe Adam

Adolphe Charles Adam was born 24 July 1803, son of a well-known composer and pianist who didn't want him in music. He defied his father and became a prolific theatre composer, creating the ballet Giselle in 1841, the opera Le postillon de Lonjumeau in 1836, and in 1847 the Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" - known in English as "O Holy Night". His operas and ballets earned him a good living until 1848, when a disastrous bid to open a new Paris opera house in competition with the Opéra and Opéra-Comique wiped him out. He recovered by turning to journalism and teaching, eventually appointed professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Alongside Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien Boieldieu, he helped create the later Romantic French form of opera before his death on 3 May 1856.