Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes spent his whole working life in the theaters of Paris. Born in 1836 in the village of Saint-Germain-du-Val, he came to the city as a boy, sang in a church choir, and worked his way up through jobs as an organist and rehearsal accompanist before his stage works began to land.

Two of them have never left the repertoire. Coppélia, from 1870, is a comic ballet about a life-size mechanical doll so convincing that a village boy falls for her. Lakmé, an opera from 1883 set in British India, contains the Flower Duet, two soprano voices twining together in music that countless people know from films and advertisements without knowing its name. Tchaikovsky, no small judge of ballet, openly admired Delibes's dance scores.

Start with the suite from Coppélia, then the Flower Duet and Bell Song from Lakmé.