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Dukas studied at the Paris Conservatory, where his teachers included Théodore Dubois and Ernest Guiraud. He taught the orchestral class there 191013 and was then appointed professor of composition; in 1926 he also began teaching at the École Normale, and held both posts until his death. Among his pupils at the Conservatory was Olivier Messiaen.
He wrote very little, composing slowly and with extreme care. His opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue is among the finest French operas of its day, premiered four years before Bartók wrote Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1918).