Ludovic Halévy et Albert Boulanger-Cavé dans les coulisses de l'Opéra

The two men in dark coats are friends of Degas, caught in the wings of the Paris Opéra among the flats and ropes of the stage machinery. On the left is Ludovic Halévy, one of the great librettists of the day. With Henri Meilhac he had written the words for Bizet's Carmen and for a string of Offenbach's comic operas. Beside him stands Albert Boulanger-Cavé, an official who censored the stage. Degas made them deliberately grave figures in a place built for froth and spectacle. He showed the pastel at the Impressionist exhibition of 1879, one piece of his long fascination with the theatre seen from behind rather than from the good seats. Later he gave the work to Halévy himself, and it stayed in the family for generations.