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Charles-Antoine Cambon (21 April 1802 Paris – 22 October 1875 Paris) was a French scenographer who acquired international notoriety in the Romantic Era.
Little biographical information exists on Cambon's early years, other than that he would have been active as an aquarelle and sepia artist before studying with Pierre-Luc Charles Ciceri. At Ciceri's workshop Cambon made acquaintance with Humanité-René Philastre, who would become his first long-term associate.
As a stage design for a "Salon" at the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra testifies, Philastre and Cambon started collaborating in 1824 at the latest. From that time until 1848, Philastre and Cambon accepted numerous joint commissions for theatrical interior decorations and stage designs. Thus, they decorated the interiors of venues in Angoulême, Antwerp, Beaune, Brest, Choiseul, Dijon, Douai, Ghent, Lille, Lyon, Paris and Rouen, often providing complete machineries as well. Philastre and Cambon also designed productions – or portions thereof, as was customary back then – for Paris (Académie Royale de Musique, Ambigu, Bouffes-Parisiens, Cirque Olympique, Comédie-Française, Délassements-Comiques, Folies-Dramatiques, Porte Saint-Martin), Antwerp (Théâtre Royal Français), Barcelona (Liceu) and Ghent (Grand Théâtre) that created the blueprint for grand opéra and romantic scenography in Europe. Notable stagings to which Philastre and Cambon contributed are the world premieres of Auber's Gustave III, ou Le bal masque (1833), Berlioz' Benvenuto Cellini (1838), Donizetti's La favorite (1840), Halévy's La juive (1835), and Hugo's Les Burgraves (1843).
Cambon separated from Philastre in 1848 as the latter emigrated to Spain. He found a new associate in an extremely talented student, Joseph Thierry, with whom Cambon would design epoch-making productions for the Châtelet, Opéra, Opéra-Comique, Théâtre-Historique, and Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris. Examples of Cambon and Thierry's joint oeuvre include the world premieres of Berlioz' Les Troyens à Carthage (1863), Gounod's Faust (1859) and La reine de Saba (1862), Meyerbeer's Le prophète (1849) and L'Africaine (1865), Verdi's Jérusalem (1847) and Don Carlos (1867), and Wagner's Tannhäuser (Parisian version, 1861).
After Thierry's premature death, in 1866, Cambon continued to work in full independence for venues in Cairo (Khedivial Opera) and Paris (Odéon, Opéra and Vaudeville), decorating a.o. the world premieres of Delibes' Coppélia (1870) and of Thomas' Hamlet (1868), next to a large number of the Palais Garnier's first-generation productions (a.o. Don Giovanni, Faust, La favorite, Guillaume Tell, Hamlet, Les Huguenots, Jeanne d'Arc and La juive). Cambon was to co-design the premiere of Verdi's Aida (1871), but dropped out of the production due to unknown circumstances.
Cambon taught many pupils at his scenic studio at 3 rue Neuve-Samson (currently rue Léon-Jouhaux, Xme Arrondissement). Students of note are Antoine Lavastre and Eugène Louis Carpezat (his official successors), Chéret, Jean-Émile Daran, Célestin-François-Louis Gosse, Eugène Lacoste, Jules-Frédéric Le Goff, Francesc Soler Rovirosa, and Angelo II Quaglio.
Cambon was named 'Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur' in 1869. He was a friend of Prosper Mérimée and Stendhal. Cambon's funeral service at Saint-Denis-du-Sacrement and subsequent burial at Montmartre Cemetery were reportedly attended by Camille du Locle, Émile Perrin and Édouard Thierry, as well as by the complete crew of the Opéra.