Comic opera, ballet, and opera bouffa were the forte of Léo Delibes. He was a student of his mother and uncle (the organist Batiste) and worked with Minkus with admirations for Richard Wagner, Meyerbeer, and Bizet. He was an important influence on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, D'Indy, Saint-Saens and Debussy. The ballet "Coppelia" was his most noted and renowned revealing the charming qualities of his music; elegance, melodic abundance, and character numbers characterize this ballet. His "piesta resistance" was "Lakme" with a flare for the dramatic and revealing soprano and well-developed principle male characters. Melodic, picturesuqe and theatrically strong "Lakme" was and is an exemplar of the operatic stage that illustrates the idea that opera is the most complete artistic form. Notable off-stage settings by Léo Delibes included choruses. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi