Alexandre Falguière’s Drame Lyrique

Commissioned by the French State in 1897 for the Opéra-Comique, Alexandre Falguière’s sculpture Lyric Drama travelled throughout the 20th century, moving from place to place until its rediscovery in Berlin. Repatriated in 2024 and restored by the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), it will return on March 11, 2026 to the theatre for which it was originally created.

In February 1899, two statues were installed in the entrance vestibule of the new Salle Favart. The one now known as Manon, by Antonin Mercié, was then an allegory of 18th-century Opéra-Comique. Beside it stood not the present-day Carmen, but an allegory of Lyric Drama by Alexandre Falguière (1831–1900). At the theatre’s entrance, repertory and creation, tradition and modernity thus stood side by side.

These two statues were part of a broader context of numerous commissions issued by the Bureau des Travaux d’art of the Fine Arts administration—of which the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) is now the successor—for the pictorial and sculptural decorative schemes of the new Opéra-Comique. Indeed, the building’s architect, Louis Bernier, along with the Direction des Beaux-Arts, called upon many artists, including winners of the Prix de Rome, professors at the École des beaux-arts, and/or members of the Académie. This decorative programme is marked by the eclecticism characteristic of the Third Republic, as evidenced by the many works listed in the Cnap inventory: the paintings by Luc-Olivier Merson for the grand staircase; the compositions by Albert Maignan in the grand foyer; the dome executed by Benjamin-Constant; and the large panels by Henri Gervex, La Foire Saint-Laurent and Le Ballet de la reine. Falguière’s allegorical figure was commissioned on March 16, 1897 for the sum of 10,000 francs.

In the spring of 1919, Lyric Drama was removed and replaced by a Carmen by Maurice Guiraud-Rivière, also commissioned by the State and registered under the number FNAC 2932. This led to the reclassification of Mercié’s statue as Manon. From then on, two modern heroines of the Opéra-Comique stood side by side—creations by Georges Bizet (1875) and Jules Massenet (1884).

Returned to State storage in 1932, Falguière’s statue was subsequently allocated to the city of Angers in 1936. The sculpture was initially placed in the courtyard of the Musée des beaux-arts (Logis Barrault). However, it was not relocated to Angers after 1945.

In 1981, it reappeared in Berlin in the inventory of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin during a collections survey. Although present in Berlin’s collections since the war, it had not been formally recorded due to the absence of documentation proving its acquisition or donation.

In 1992, Anne Pingeot, curator at the Musée d’Orsay, photographed the sculpture in a Berlin storage facility and identified its connection with the decorative programme commissioned for the Opéra-Comique.

From 2020 onwards, an investigation brought together Laurent Falguière, the sculptor’s great-grandson, the Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique, the Alte Nationalgalerie, and the scientific team of the Cnap’s collections department. The latter conducted further documentary and archival research confirming both the original commission of this sculpture by Falguière and its status as a unique work. These exchanges between the various institutional stakeholders confirmed the provenance of the Berlin statue, although the stages of its journey between 1945 and its reappearance in Berlin in 1981 remain unclear.

The restitution request, formally submitted by the Cnap in November 2022, received a positive response as early as March 2023 from the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

Repatriated in December 2024 to the Cnap’s storage facilities, Lyric Drama has since been restored by the Cnap in preparation for its deposit and reinstallation in the theatre on March 11, 2026, on the occasion of the French premiere of Nuit sans aube by Matthias Pintscher, following its Berlin premiere on January 11.
 

Discover the works of Alexandre Falguière in the Cnap collection