Sylvain Dupuis was a Belgian conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, oboist

Oboist

An oboist is a musician who plays the oboe or any oboe family instrument, including the cor anglais, oboe d'amore, shawm and oboe musette....

, and music educator.

Life

Born in Liège

Liège

Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....

, Dupuis was trained at the Royal Conservatory of Liège. After graduating in 1878, he was appointed to that school's faculty as a professor of harmony

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

. In 1911 he succeeded Jean-Théodore Radoux

Jean-Théodore Radoux

Jean Théodore Radoux was a Belgian composer and bassoonist. In 1859 he won the Belgian Prix de Rome for his cantata Le Juif errant which he had composed earlier that year...

 as the director of the conservatory. Among his notable pupils were Hubert de Blanck

Hubert de Blanck

Hubertus Christiaan de Blanck was a Dutch-born professor, pianist, and composer who spent the better part of his life in Cuba....

 and Charles Houdret

Charles Houdret

Charles Houdret was a Canadian conductor, cellist, radio producer, and composer. He began his career in his native country of Belgium and was highly active as a conductor throughout Europe during the 1940s. In 1952 he immigrated to Canada where he ultimately became a naturalized citizen...

.

Dupuis worked actively as a composer during the early part of his career, but later became more heavily involved in his work as an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 conductor and music teacher. As a result, the majority of his works date from before 1900. In 1879 he won the Belgian Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome (Belgium)

The Belgian Prix de Rome is an award for young artists, created in 1832, following the example of the original French Prix de Rome. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp organised the prize until 1920, when the national government took over. The first prize is also sometimes called the Grand Prix...

 for his cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 Le Chant de la Création. In the 1880s he composed two operas, Moîna and Coûr d'ognon. His other compositions include several secular cantatas, the symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

 Macbeth, a concertino

Concertino (composition)

A concertino is a short concerto freer in form. It normally takes the form of a one-movement musical composition for solo instrument and orchestra, though some concertinos are written in several movements played without a pause....

 for oboe and orchestra, a number of choral works

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

, and music for solo organ, piano, violin and cello.

In 1890 Dupuis was appointed to the conducting staff at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie

La Monnaie

Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....

, and in 1900 he assumed the role of principal conductor at that house. He notably conducted that opera house's first productions of Götterdämmerung

Götterdämmerung

is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...

(13 January 1891), Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...

(15 February 1902), Tosca

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

(2 April 1904), Alceste

Alceste (Gluck)

Alceste is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place in Vienna.-Preface and reforms:...

(14 December 1904), La damnation de Faust (21 February 1906), Les Troyens

Les Troyens

Les Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...

(27 December 1906), Salome

Salome (opera)

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

(26 March 1907), Fortunio

Fortunio (opera)

Fortunio comédie lyrique or opera in 4 Acts and 5 tableaux by composer André Messager. The French language libretto by Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers is based on Alfred de Musset's comedy Le Chandelier. A stage work in the opéra comique tradition, the opera contains some spoken...

(4 January 1908), Ariane et Barbe-bleue

Ariane et Barbe-bleue

Ariane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck....

(2 January 1909), Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

(29 October 1909), Elektra

Elektra (opera)

Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...

(26 May 1910), Feuersnot

Feuersnot

Feuersnot , Op. 50, is a Singgedicht or opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The German libretto was written by Ernst von Wolzogen, based on J. Ketel's report "Das erloschene Feuer zu Audenaerde" in the Oudenaarde Gazette, Leipzig, 1843...

(16 March 1911), and Roma

Roma (opera)

Roma is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Cain based on the play Rome vaincue by Alexandre Parodi. It was first performed at the Opéra in Monte Carlo on February 17, 1912....

(15 January 1913). He also conducted numerous world premieres, including Ernest Chausson

Ernest Chausson

Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.-Life:Ernest Chausson was born in Paris into a prosperous bourgeois family...

's Le roi Arthus

Le roi Arthus

Le roi Arthus is an opera in three acts by the French composer Ernest Chausson to his own libretto. It was composed between 1886 and 1895, but only first performed on 30 November 1903 at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, after long delays...

(30 November 1903), Albert Dupuis

Albert Dupuis

-Biography:Albert Dupuis was born in Verviers on 1 March 1877.The son of a music teacher, Dupuis studied violin, piano and flute from the age of 8, at the conservatory in his hometown, Verviers, also home of Guillaume Lekeu and Henri Vieuxtemps. Orphaned at age 15, he worked as a tutor at the Grand...

's Martylle (3 March 1905), Albert Roussel

Albert Roussel

Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel was a French composer. He spent seven years as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult, and became one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar period...

's Le poème de la forêt" in 4 tempi (22 March 1908), Pierre de Bréville

Pierre de Bréville

Pierre Onfroy de Bréville was a French composer.-Biography:Pierre de Bréville was born was born in Bar-le-Duc, Meuse. Following the wishes of his parents, he studied law with the goal of becoming a diplomat. However, he abandoned his plans after a few years and entered the Conservatoire de Paris...

's Éros vainqueur

Éros vainqueur

Éros vainqueur is an opera or conte lyrique in 3 acts and 4 scenes by composer Pierre de Bréville. The work uses a French language libretto by the poet and novelist Jean Lorrain and was dedicated by Bréville to composer Vincent d'Indy. The opera premiered on 7 March 1910 at the Théâtre Royal de la...

(7 March 1910), Cesare Galeotti

Cesare Galeotti

Cesare Galeotti was an Italian composer, conductor, and concert pianist. He is best known for his opera Anton which he conducted at its highly lauded premiere at La Scala on 17 February 1900...

's Dorisse (18 April 1910), and Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

's Le chant de la cloche (21 November 1912). He also conducted the premiere of the third and final revision of Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish Catalan pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms .-Life:Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz...

's Pepita Jiménez

Pepita Jiménez

Pepita Jiménez is a lyric comedy or comic opera with music written by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz. The original opera was written in one act and used an English libretto by Albéniz's patron and collaborator, the Englishman Francis Money-Coutts, which is based on the novel of the same name by...

on January 3, 1905.

Dupuis died in Bruges

Bruges

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

less than two weeks before his 75th birthday.