The son of a distinguished Paris Conservatoire piano-teacher, Adolphe Adam was born in Paris in 1803.

He won popular success with his many compositions for the stage, much of his later work necessitated by the failure of a theatre venture in the revolution of 1848 and the consequent need to pay off heavy debts, cleared by the time of his death in 1856.

Adam wrote some eighty works for the stage.

Of these the best known is the ballet "Giselle or Les Wilis", based on a legend according to which the ghosts of unmarried girls return to seek revenge on the living.

His opera "Si j'étais roi" was among the most successful and the overture remains in international concert repertoire.