Jules Barbier

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Jules Barbier (8 March 1825 - 16 January 1901) was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré.

His libretti for extant operas include:

• Charles Gounod:
  • La Colombe
  • Faust (*)
  • Le Médecin malgré lui (*)
  • Philémon et Baucis
  • Polyeucte
  • La Reine de Saba
  • Romeo et Juliette (*)
• Giacomo Meyerbeer
  • Le Pardon de Ploermel (later revised as Dinora)
• Jacques Offenbach
  • The Tales of Hoffmann
• Camille Saint-Saens
  • Le Timbre d'argent
• Ambroise Thomas
  • Hamlet (*)
  • Mignon (*).

(*) co-written with Michel Carré.

He also wrote the libretto for La Guzla de l'Émir, a one-act comic opera by Georges Bizet. This was never performed and probably destroyed.

He wrote the scenario for Léo Delibes' ballet Sylvia.

Gounod wrote incidental music to Barbier's play Jeanne d'Arc, and the libretto to Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans was partially based on it.