aux clercs (1832). The first had a romantic libretto by Mélesville that appealed to the public and brought out the best in Hérold. The work had a tentative start because of a financial crisis at Opéra-Comique and the defection of the company's leading tenor, but it quickly became one of the most popular opéras comiques of the 19th century, in France and elsewhere, being staged in the US and Britain in 1833. In mid-1832 the Opéra-Comique had to close because of a cholera outbreak and civil disorder. During this period Hérold finished Le Pré aux clercs, to a libretto by Eugène de Planard based on Prosper Mérimée's historical novel Les Chroniques du temps de Charles IX (1829). Betzwieser writes that it aroused wild enthusiasm at its premiere on 15 December 1832. By the time of the first performance of Le Pré aux clercs in December 1832 the composer's tubercular condition had grown worse. His strength was taxed by the need to rehearse a new leading lady at short notice when the soprano cast for the role withdrew after her demand for higher fees was refused. Five weeks after the premiere he died, at the age of 42, at his house in Paris, and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Hérold left an unfinished opera, Ludovic. His friend Fromental Halévy completed the score, and it was performed three months after Hérold's death. By the end of the 19th century Le Pré aux clercs had been performed more than 1,500 times in Paris. Music The musicologist Gustav Choquet wrote in 1904 that Hérold's early symphonic, choral and chamber works show that the composer could have excelled in concert works had he continued in that type of composition, but the stage "possesses an irresistible attraction for a man gifted with ardent imagination and capacity for expressing emotion", leading Hérold to opera and the ballet. Ballets thumb|upright|Costume design for Marie Taglioni in La Belle au bois dormant, 1829|alt=coloured drawing of costume design showing young white woman in loose silver-coloured skirt and red and white decorated top, with red hat Until Hérold's day the role of the composer was not a prestigious one in the world of ballet. In The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Ole Nørlyng observes that ballet scores before then "seldom rose above light arrangements of well-known melodies and dance tunes". Hérold, and his friend Adolphe Adam (son of his godfather and piano