(1821-1872)
French librettist, poet and playwright Michel Carré is best known for his collaborations with Jules Barbier, which yielded the librettos for Gounod's Faust, Thomas's Hamlet and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, among other works. Carré settled in Paris in 1840 and started his career as a painter before turning to writing. His first volume of verses was published in 1842, and soon the theatre began to beckon to him. Although his reputation was primarily established through those works for which he is jointly credited with Barbier, he also collaborated individually with such artists as Meyerbeer, Massé, Halévy, Pascal, Boulanger and Saint-Saëns.