Max d'Ollone

Biographical information

RolesCompeted in Olympic Games
SexMale
Full nameMaximilien Paul Marie Félix•d'Ollone
Used nameMax•d'Ollone
Born13 June 1875 in Besançon, Doubs (FRA)
Died15 May 1959 in Paris VIIe, Paris (FRA)
NOC France

Biography

Max d’Ollone was a prolific French composer who composed 11 operas and one ballet, but also chamber and orchestral music. Later he became the director of music at Angers, professor at the Paris Conservatoire and director of the Opéra Comique and held many other official positions. D’Ollone started to write music and attracted the interest of established composers at an early age. At the Paris Conservatoire his teachers were French composers Lavignac, Massenet, Gédalge and Lenepveu. In his early 20s, he was awarded the Grand Prix de Roma. During his subsequent stay in Roma he won the Rossini competition with his lyric poem Dante’s Vision. He continued to write orchestral music but always preferred music for the theater. D’Ollone even wrote the libretto for his opera Le Retour, praised by critics but less successful with the public. His masterpiece is considered to be the 1920 opera L’Arlequin.

During the German occupation in World War II, d’Ollone collaborated with the Germans and the French Vichy regime. He organized concerts with loyal musicians and held positions in institutions implemented by the Germans. After the liberation, he was imprisoned for a short period but soon released and his case was not pursued further, not the least because he was exculpated by artists from the French resistance movement.

D’Ollone had a conservative understanding of music. In several publications, he argued against new developments like the Viennese Schönberg-School and 12-tone technique. He had an early connection to the Olympics: His speech about “Le sport et la beauté plastique” was held at the 1906 Consultative Conference for the Arts, Literature and Sports and published in the “Revue Olympique”. The title of his submitted composition is unknown; in the year 1912 he composed, inter alia, Elevation (for orchestra and singing voice).

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1912 Summer Olympics Art Competitions FRA Max d'Ollone
Music, Open (Olympic) AC