Camille du Locle was a French theatre director and a librettist. He was born in Orange

Orange, Vaucluse

Orange is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It has a primarily agricultural economy...

, France. From 1862 he served as assistant to his father-in-law, Émile Perrin

Émile Perrin

Émile-César-Victor Perrin was a French painter, mainly known as a theatre director and impresario, born in Rouen on 9 January 1814, died 8 October 1885. His son-in-law was Camille du Locle....

 at the Paris Opéra, moving in 1870 to the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

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He is best remembered for mounting the original production of Bizet's Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

in 1875. His friendship with Ernest Reyer

Ernest Reyer

Ernest Reyer, the adopted name of Louis Étienne Ernest Rey, was a French opera composer and music critic .- Biography :...

 led to him providing libretti for Sigurd

Sigurd

Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...

and Salammbô

Salammbô (opera)

Salammbô is an opera in five acts composed by Ernest Reyer to a French libretto by Camille du Locle. It is based on the novel Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert . The opera was first performed at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels on 10 February 1890...

. Du Locle was responsible for completing the libretto of Don Carlos

Don Carlos

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...

after the death of Joseph Mery. He also played a key role in the genesis of Aida

Aida

Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

in 1869-70. In 1876, a financial dispute arose with Verdi, and Du Locle moved to Capri. He lived in what is called today “La Certosella”.

According to Charles Pigot, Du Locle inspired the subject, words and music of Bizet's Djamileh

Djamileh

Djamileh is an opéra comique in one act by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Louis Gallet, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset.-Composition history:...

. He was a pall-bearer at Bizet's funeral and made a speech at his interment at Père Lachaise

Père Lachaise Cemetery

Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...

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Du Locle died in Capri

Capri

Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...

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