La contribution de Florimond Ronger, dit Hervé, au développement de l'opérette (1848-1870) : éléments biographiques et mécanismes du comique

La version intégrale de cette thèse est disponible uniquement pour consultation individuelle à la Bibliothèque de musique de l’Université de Montréal (www.bib.umontreal.ca/MU).Aujourd’hui, le nom du « père de l’opérette », Florimond Ronger, dit Hervé (1825-1892), se résume bien souvent à une note de bas de page dans les volumes d’histoire de la musique. S’il est vrai, pour emprunter la formule de Jules Lemaître, que l’opérette est le seul genre dramatique qu’ait produit la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, on peut s’interroger sur les raisons de l’oubli dans lequel est tombé un compositeur qui, de son vivant, remporta pourtant des succès comparables à ceux de son plus célèbre rival, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880). Cette thèse a pour objectif d’évaluer l’apport d’Hervé à la naissance et au développement du genre de l’opérette de 1848 à 1870. Pour ce faire, ce travail survole dans un premier temps la vie et la carrière d’Hervé pour observer la nature de sa participation au développement du genre et l'impact de sa biographie sur cette trajectoire ; dans un deuxième temps, nous étudions son approche du comique telle qu’elle se manifeste dans le livret et la musique de ses œuvres. Le premier des quatre chapitres qui composent cette thèse dresse un bilan des données biographiques qu’on peut extraire des trois livres qui ont été consacrés au moins en partie à Hervé (Schneider 1924, Ghesquière et Cariven-Galharret 1992 et Rouchouse 1994). Le chapitre 2 montre le nouvel éclairage que jette sur la carrière du compositeur le dépouillement d’archives, et aborde entre autres le sujet délicat et fortement occulté jusqu’à maintenant du procès et de la condamnation du compositeur pour détournement de mineur. Le chapitre 3 propose un inventaire des ressorts du comique employés dans les opérettes de Hervé entre 1848 et 1870 et plus spécifiquement dans L’œil crevé (1867), première œuvre ambitieuse en trois actes où se cristallisent l’ensemble des procédés comiques du compositeur. Le chapitre 4 observe l’application de ces procédés dans Le petit Faust (1869), une parodie du Faust (1859) de Gounod, qui s’est avéré le plus grand succès d’Hervé et constitue probablement son chef-d’œuvre.Today, the name of “the father of operetta”, Florimond Ronger, who worked under the moniker Hervé (1825-1892), is generally relegated to a footnote in the annals of music history. Yet, if Jules Lemaître's contention that operetta is the only dramatic genre produced by the second half of the nineteenth century is indeed true, one may well ponder how its leading exponent, a composer whose works attained a level of success during his lifetime comparable to that of his most famous rival, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), could fall into obscurity. The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the contribution of Hervé to the birth and development of operetta from 1848 to 1870. To do this, this work shall first survey Hervé's life and career to examine the nature of his participation in the development of the genre and the impact of his biography on its trajectory. Next, we shall study his approach toward the comic as it manifests in both the libretti and music of his works. Chapter 1 of the four which comprise this dissertation provides an overview of the biographical data which can be extracted from the three books devoted at least in part to Hervé (Schneider, 1924; Ghesquière and Cariven-Galharret, 1992; and Rouchouse, 1994). Chapter 2 is a distillation of the information gleaned from an examination of the archives which sheds new light on the career of the composer. Among other topics, the delicate and heretofore highly obscure subject of Hervé's trial and conviction for enticement of a minor will be explored. Chapter 3 consists of a general inventory of the comic devices used in the operettas of Hervé between 1848 and 1870 and more specifically a detailed analysis of those found in L’œil crevé (1867), his first ambitious work in three acts wherein is found the synthesis and crystallization of all the composer’s comic devices. Chapter 4 examines the implementation of these same techniques in Le petit Faust (1869), a parody of Gounod’s Faust (1859), which proved to be Hervé's greatest success and probably his masterpiece

Existence and uniqueness of equilibrium for a spatial model of social interactions

We extend Beckmann’s spatial model of social interactions to the case of a two-dimensional spatial economy involving a large class of utility functions, accessing costs, and space-dependent amenities. We show that spatial equilibria derive from a potential functional. By proving the existence of a minimiser of the functional, we obtain that of a spatial equilibrium. Under mild conditions on the primitives of the economy, the functional is shown to satisfy displacement convexity, a concept used in the theory of optimal transportation. This provides a variational characterisation of spatial equilibria. Moreover, the strict displacement convexity of the functional ensures the uniqueness of spatial equilibrium. Also, the spatial symmetry of equilibrium is derived from that of the spatial primitives of the economy. Several examples illustrate the scope of our results. In particular, the emergence of multiple of equilibria in the circular economy is interpreted as a lack of convexity of the problem

Chlordecone exposure and adverse effects in French West Indies populations

International audienceChlordecone (Kepone) is an organochlorine insecticide that has been used as insecticide and fungicide. In the French West Indies, Guadeloupe and Martinique, it was intensively applied to banana fields from 1973 to 1993 to control root borers. This pesticide undergoes no significant biotic or abiotic degradation in the environment and is still present in soils where it was applied. It was only in 1999 that health and environmental authorities became aware of the extent of the chlordecone pollution of environmental media, including soils, waterways, and the food chain. Earlier observations and toxicological studies have demonstrated that chlordecone is a reproductive and developmental toxicant, neurotoxic and carcinogenic in rodents, and is an endocrine-disrupting chemical because of its estrogenic properties both in vitro and in vivo. Several surveys have confirmed that the French West Indian population continues to be exposed to this chemical though consumption of contaminated foodstuffs. Here, we report the findings of various epidemiological studies conducted in the French West Indies to assess the impact of environmental exposure to chlordecone on the health of the population

Utilisation de grilles de calcul pour la génomique comparative

International audienceLarge scale phylogenomics and comparative genomics require complex computational methods (parsimony, maximum likelihood, bayesian methods, MCMC, etc.) associated with massively distributed calculation. In this respect, grid computing plays a crucial role. Here we present how we processed exhaustive similarity searches on several millions of sequences with BLAST, using two different grids (TIDRA and GRISBI)

Development and validation of high-density SNP array in ducks

Development and validation of high-density SNP array in ducks. XIth European symposium on poultry genetics (ESPG

Utilisation de grilles de calcul pour la génomique comparative

International audienceLarge scale phylogenomics and comparative genomics require complex computational methods (parsimony, maximum likelihood, bayesian methods, MCMC, etc.) associated with massively distributed calculation. In this respect, grid computing plays a crucial role. Here we present how we processed exhaustive similarity searches on several millions of sequences with BLAST, using two different grids (TIDRA and GRISBI)

Crystal structure and solution characterization of the thioredoxin-2 from Plasmodium falciparum, a constituent of an essential parasitic protein export complex

Survival of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum when it infects red blood cells depends upon its ability to export hundreds of its proteins beyond an encasing vacuole. Protein export is mediated by a parasite-derived protein complex, the Plasmodium translocon of exported proteins (PTEX), and requires unfolding of the different cargos prior to their translocation across the vacuolar membrane. Unfolding is performed by the AAA + protein unfoldase HSP101/ClpB2 and the thioredoxin-2 enzyme (TRX2). Protein trafficking is dramatically impaired in parasites with defective HSP101 or lacking TRX2. These two PTEX subunits drive export and are targets for the design of a novel class of antimalarials: protein export inhibitors. To rationalize inhibitor design, we solved the crystal structure of Pfal-TRX2 at 2.2-Å resolution. Within the asymmetric unit, the three different copies of this protein disulfide reductase sample its two redox catalytic states. Size exclusion chromatography and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) analyses demonstrate that Pfal-TRX2 is monomeric in solution. A non-conserved N-terminal extension precedes the canonical thioredoxin-fold; although it is not observed in our structure, our solution analysis suggests it is flexible in contrast to Plasmodium thioredoxin-1. This represents a first step towards the reconstitution of the entire PTEX for mechanistic and structural studies

Trans-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of prostate cancer identifies new susceptibility loci and informs genetic risk prediction.

Prostate cancer is a highly heritable disease with large disparities in incidence rates across ancestry populations. We conducted a multiancestry meta-analysis of prostate cancer genome-wide association studies (107,247 cases and 127,006 controls) and identified 86 new genetic risk variants independently associated with prostate cancer risk, bringing the total to 269 known risk variants. The top genetic risk score (GRS) decile was associated with odds ratios that ranged from 5.06 (95% confidence interval (CI), 4.84-5.29) for men of European ancestry to 3.74 (95% CI, 3.36-4.17) for men of African ancestry. Men of African ancestry were estimated to have a mean GRS that was 2.18-times higher (95% CI, 2.14-2.22), and men of East Asian ancestry 0.73-times lower (95% CI, 0.71-0.76), than men of European ancestry. These findings support the role of germline variation contributing to population differences in prostate cancer risk, with the GRS offering an approach for personalized risk prediction

Characterizing Prostate Cancer Risk Through Multi-Ancestry Genome-Wide Discovery of 187 Novel Risk Variants

The transferability and clinical value of genetic risk scores (GRSs) across populations remain limited due to an imbalance in genetic studies across ancestrally diverse populations. Here we conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 156,319 prostate cancer cases and 788,443 controls of European, African, Asian and Hispanic men, reflecting a 57% increase in the number of non-European cases over previous prostate cancer genome-wide association studies. We identified 187 novel risk variants for prostate cancer, increasing the total number of risk variants to 451. An externally replicated multi-ancestry GRS was associated with risk that ranged from 1.8 (per standard deviation) in African ancestry men to 2.2 in European ancestry men. The GRS was associated with a greater risk of aggressive versus non-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry (P = 0.03). Our study presents novel prostate cancer susceptibility loci and a GRS with effective risk stratification across ancestry groups

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery