French librettist Edouard Blau worked with such composers as Bizet, Massenet and Offenbach. He is best known today as co-librettist for Massenet’s Werther.

Blau was born in Blois and moved to Paris aged 20. He worked at the Assistance Publique administering social services until 1870, by which time he was increasingly known as a theatre journalist and librettist. He most frequently worked in collaboration with other librettists, including his cousin Alfred Blau and his Assistance Publique colleague Louis Gallet.

Blau’s librettos include Bizet’s La Coupe de roi de Thulé (unperformed) and Don Rodrigue (opera unfinished) with Gallet; Offenbach’s Belle Lurette (1880) with Ernest Blum and Raoul Toché; Massenet’s Le Cid (1885) with Adolphe d’Ennery and Gallet and Werther (1892) with Paul Miliet and Georges Hartmann; and Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys (1888) and La Jacquerie (1895) with Simone Arnaud.