Achille Edmond Audran (12 April 1840[1][2] – 17 August 1901) was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas and operettas.
After beginning his career in Marseille as an organist, Audran composed religious music and began to write works for the stage in the 1860s and 1870s. Among these, Le grand mogol (1877) was the most popular and was later revived in Paris, London and New York. In 1879 he moved to Paris, where some of his pieces achieved considerable success both in France and abroad, including Les noces d'Olivette (1879), La mascotte (1880), Gillette de Narbonne (1882), La cigale et la fourmi (1886), Miss Helyett (1890) and La poupée (1896).
Most of his works are now neglected, but La mascotte has been revived occasionally and has been recorded for the gramophone.
- ^ "Audran, Edmond" by Andrew Lamb in Grove Music Online (subscription required). Other authorities, notably the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, give the date as 11 April 1842
- ^ date of birth according to naturals record (see below)