Editing Paul Dukas (section)

===20th-century works===
[[File:Bakst La Péri costume of Iskender.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Costume design for Dukas's ''La Péri'' by [[Léon Bakst]], 1922.]]
In the decade after ''L'apprenti sorcier'', Dukas completed two complex and technically demanding large-scale works for solo piano: the [[Piano Sonata (Dukas)|Piano Sonata]] (1901), dedicated to [[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns]], and ''[[Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau]]'' (1902).<ref name=grove/> In Dukas's piano works critics have discerned the influence of Beethoven, or, "Beethoven as he was interpreted to the French mind by César Franck".<ref name=l92/> Both works were premiered by [[Édouard Risler]], a celebrated pianist of the era.<ref name=l90>Lockspeiser, p. 90</ref> There are also two smaller works for piano solo. The Sonata, described by the critic Edward Lockspeiser as "huge and somewhat recondite",<ref name=l92>Lockspeiser, p. 92</ref> did not enter the mainstream repertoire, but it has been more recently championed by such pianists as [[Marc-André Hamelin]] and [[Margaret Fingerhut]].<ref>Nicholas, Jeremy. [http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July%202006/74/813305 "Dukas"], ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', July 2006, p. 74, accessed 18 March 2011</ref><ref>Chandos CD 8765 (1988)</ref> Lockspeiser describes the ''Rameau Variations'' as more developed and assured ... Dukas infuses the conventional form with a new and powerful spirit."<ref name=l92/>

In 1899 Dukas turned once again to operatic composition. His second attempt, ''L'arbre de science'', was abandoned, incomplete, but in the same year he began work on his one completed opera, ''[[Ariane et Barbe-bleue]]'' (''Ariadne and Bluebeard''). The work is a setting of a libretto by [[Maurice Maeterlinck]].<ref name=ocm>Arnold, Denis and Richard Langham Smith. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e2110 "Dukas, Paul (Abraham)."] ''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham, Oxford Music Online, accessed 19 March 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref> The author had intended the libretto to be set by [[Edvard Grieg|Grieg]] but in 1899 he offered it to Dukas.<ref name=pog/> Dukas worked on it for seven years and it was produced at the [[Opéra-Comique]] in 1907.<ref name=grove/> The opera has often been compared to Debussy's ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' which was first performed while Dukas was writing ''Ariane et Barbe-bleue''. Not only are both works settings of Maeterlinck, but there are musical similarities; Dukas even quotes from the Debussy work in his score.<ref name=ocm/> Although it won considerable praise, its success was overshadowed by the Paris premiere of [[Richard Strauss]]'s sensational opera ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'' at much the same time.<ref name=grove/> Nonetheless, within a short time of its premiere, Dukas's opera was produced in Vienna, where it aroused much interest in [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]]'s circle, and in Frankfurt, Milan and New York.<ref name=grove/> It did not maintain a regular place in the repertory, despite the advocacy of [[Arturo Toscanini]], who conducted it in New York three years in succession,<ref>Taubman, Howard. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/739147 "Toscanini in America"],'' The Musical Quarterly,'' April 1947, pp. 178–187 {{subscription required}}</ref> and [[Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham]], who pronounced it "one of the finest lyrical dramas of our time,"<ref name=l91>Lockspeiser, p. 91</ref> and staged it at [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]] in 1937.<ref>Jefferson, p. 184</ref> Interest in it revived in the 1990s, with productions in Paris ([[Théâtre du Châtelet]], 1990) and Hamburg ([[Hamburg State Opera|Staatsoper]], 1997),<ref name=grove/> and at the [[Opéra Bastille]] in Paris in 2007.<ref>[http://www.evene.fr/culture/agenda/ariane-et-barbe-bleue-18726.php " Ariane et Barbe-Bleue"], ''Evene'', accessed 18 March 2011</ref>

Dukas's last major work was the sumptuous oriental ballet ''[[La Péri (Dukas)|La Péri]]'' (1912). Described by the composer as a "poème dansé" it depicts a young Persian prince who travels to the ends of the Earth in a quest to find the lotus flower of immortality, coming across its guardian, the Péri (fairy).<ref name=blakeman>Blakeman, Edward (1990). Notes to [[Chandos Records|Chandos]] CD 208852, p. 5</ref> Because of the very quiet opening pages of the ballet score, the composer added a brief "Fanfare pour précéder ''La Peri''" which gave the typically noisy audiences of the day time to settle in their seats before the work proper began. ''La Péri'' was written for the Russian-French dancer [[Natalia Vladimirovna Trouhanowa|Natalia Trouhanova]], who starred in the first performance at the Châtelet in 1912. [[Sergei Diaghilev|Diaghilev]] planned a production with his [[Ballets Russes]] but the production did not take place; the company's choreographer [[Michel Fokine|Fokine]] staged ''L'apprenti sorcier'' as a ballet in 1916.<ref name=grove/>

In 1916, Dukas married Suzanne Pereyra (1883-1947), who was of Portuguese descent. They had one child, a daughter Adrienne-Thérèse, born in December 1919.<ref name=grove/> <!-- CITATION WANTED FOR THIS , who died on 25 March 1958, in a plane crash near [[Miami]]. She was residing in New York at the time of her death.-->