Alphonse Royer

Alphonse Royer was a French writer, librettist and theatre manager who with his regular collaborator Gustave Vaëz adapted I Lombardi for Verdi as Jérusalem in 1847. After travels in Italy and the Levant he made his name with Romantic fiction, drama and travel books. With Vaëz he wrote Donizetti's La favorite and French versions of Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini's Otello. He directed the Théâtre de l'Odéon from 1853 and the Paris Opéra from 1856 to 1862, with Vaëz first as deputy, and was then made inspector general of fine arts. In 1874 he published a history of the Opéra.