VIDAL, Paul Antoine

Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse, and studied at the conservatoires there and in Paris, under Jules Massenet at the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy. On 8 January 1886, in Rome, Vidal and Debussy performed Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony at two pianos for Liszt himself, an after-dinner performance that Liszt apparently slept through. The following day they played Emmanuel Chabrier's Trois valses romantiques for Liszt.
Vidal conducted at the Opéra National de Paris where he made his first appearance directing Gwendoline in 1894 (he had coached the singers for the Paris premiere in 1893), and later conducted the first performance of Ariane and the Paris premieres of Roma by Massenet, and L'étranger by d’Indy. He co-founded the Concerts de l’Opera with Georges Marty. He was Music Director of the Opéra-Comique from 1914–19, conducting revivals of Alceste, Don Juan (the French version of Mozart's Don Giovanni), Iphigénie en Tauride, L'irato, Le Rêve and Thérèse. He also conducted the premieres of several operas and ballets.[3] He taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, where his students included composers Marc Delmas, Jacques Ibert and Vladimir Fédorov. See: List of music students by teacher: T to Z#Paul Vidal. He died in Paris, aged 67.