Morlet: the lacunae in Louis ..

While looking up something else altogether in my 'incomparable' Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre,  I noticed that my article on the grand French opérette baritone, Louis Morlet, had a lacuna or two. So I thought I had better fill them ...

MORLET, [Auguste Louis] (b Vernon, Eure 1 March 1849; d Rue Mirabeau 29, Paris 9 March 1913). Star baritone/actor who had a fine career in the fin-de-siècle Parisian musical theatre.

Briefly, a pupil of Duprez, he made his first stage appearances at Angers (1871-3), Antwerp (1873-4), Rouen (1875) and Brussels (1875-7).  

Brussels

In 1877 he became a member of the company at the Opéra-Comique, where he made a considerable effect in his début (31 October) as Harlequin in Poise’s La Surprise de l'amour (alongside Irma Marié and Galli-Marié). However, Morlet found that he was decidedly under-used at the Salle Favart thereafter, and after appearing there in Membrée's La Courte Échelle (Chamilly), Le Pré aux Clercs (Comminee) and the première of Chabrier's one-act Une Éducation manquée (1879), he left, and instead took over the rôle of Brissac in Les Mousquetaires au couvent (1880) at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. The part, created by the actor Frédéric Achard, was reorganized and enlarged with two strong singing solos and Morlet, who proved to be as fine an actor as he was a baritone vocalist, became the star of the show.

La Surprise de l'amour

As a result of this personal triumph, he was cast in the lead rôle of the piece that followed Les Mousquetaires at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and thus created the very contrasting light comedy baritone rôle of Pippo in Audran's La Mascotte (`Glou Glou' duet) opposite the newly in-town Mlle Montbazon. 

After this second huge success, Morlet was paired again with Mlle Montbazon in a third which almost approached them in Audran's Gillette de Narbonne (1882, Roger), and he subsequently starred as a fine run of richly baritone leading men in the Parisian musical theatre, notably as Saverdy in Serpette's Fanfreluche (1883), as Lorenzo in Varney's Babolin (1884), le Comte in Serment d'Amour (1886) and in the piratical title-rôle of Planquette's Surcouf (1887). He later created rôles in Messager's Le Bourgeois de Calais (1887, Duc de Guise) at the Folies-Dramatiques, Miette (1888, de Bellegarde) and Isoline (1888, Oberon), played the title-rôle in Lecocq's Ali Baba (1889) and appeared as Riego in Juanita (1891), Planquette's Le Talisman (1893, Chevalier de Valpinçon) as well as reappearing regularly in his first and most famous rôle of Brissac, as Pippo, and other classic parts (Marquis in Les Cloches de Corneville 1894), in between times.

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Morlet was married to Mlle Gugot [GUILLOT, Jeanne], a sometime member of the Opéra-Comique company, who appeared as Bettina in the 1883 revival of La Mascotte. 

When Louis Morlet died, in 1913, at the age of 64, he was designated as 'sans profession'. Sic transit.