Boulanger was born into a Parisian musical family. His father
Frédéric, who left the family when Ernest was only a small child, was a cellist and professor of voice at the
Paris Conservatory, winner of the First Prize in cello at the Conservatory in 1797 and a professor of cello, attached to the
King's Chapel. His mother,
Marie-Julie Halligner, was a
mezzo-soprano at the
Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris. He was a pupil at the Paris Conservatory where he studied under
Jean-François Le Sueur, and
Fromental Halévy. He studied piano with the
virtuoso pianist
Charles-Valentin Alkan; and operatic composition with
Daniel Auber and
Ferdinand Hérold. At the age of 19, Boulanger was awarded the
Grand Prix de Rome in 1835 with his
cantata "Achille". In 1842, he began making a name as a composer of comic operas and as a conductor. Boulanger composed a dozen comic operas between 1842 and 1877. His chief work was the three-act opera
Don Quixote, which premiered at the
Théâtre Lyrique in 1869; the most performed of his works was the one-act
Les Sabots de la marquise ("The Marquise's Clogs"), which premiered in 1854 at the
Opéra-Comique. Boulanger met his wife
Raissa Mychetsky (née Mychetskaya; 1856–1935), 41 years his junior, in
Saint Petersburg. She was a Russian princess who descended from
St. Mikhail Chernigovsky, and Boulanger was her voice teacher. They married in 1877 and moved to Paris where they had two children, the teacher and composer
Nadia Boulanger; and composer
Lili Boulanger. Like their father, Nadia and Lili both competed in the Prix de Rome, Nadia taking second place in 1908, and Lili earning the first place in 1913. ==Principal works==