Daniel François Esprit Auber

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2010-10-12
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443825979

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871), the composer of La Muette de Portici (1828) and Fra Diavolo (1830), was once regarded as one of the great figures of music, a staple of the operatic repertoire in France, and indeed around the world. It is now almost impossible to understand the extent of his once universal fame, his influence on contemporary composers. His operas were in the theatre repertories of the world until the 1920s, and innumerable arrangements of them were published and sold everywhere. The ubiquity of his overtures—Masaniello, Fra Diavolo, The Bronze Horse, The Black Domino, The Crown Diamonds—once as popular as those of Rossini and Suppé, and the influence of his melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on Romantic comic opera, was overwhelming. In his operas Auber avoided any excess in dramatic expression; all emotion and expressiveness, any vivid depiction of local milieu, were realized within his discreetly nuanced tones, always stamped with a Parisian elegance. His operas were loved in his native France until the years before the First World War, with Fra Diavolo and Le Domino noir last performed at the Opéra-Comique in 1909. Auber’s career was a record of this success and appreciation. His appointment to the Institute (1829) was followed by other prestigious posts: as Director of Concerts at Court (1839), director of the Paris Conservatoire (1842), Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel (1852), and Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur (1861). During his lifetime, six biographies appeared contemporaneously, with another six appearing posthumously in the period up to 1914. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, reactions to Wagner, Impressionism and the Neo-Classicism of the Ballet Russe resulted in a growing lack of interest in the ancient traditions of opéra-comique, with its charming plots, melodic directness and rhythmic élan. Boieldieu, Hérold, Adam and Auber were relegated to the dustbin of history. Only in Germany did the genre continue to flourish; Auber’s most enduring work is still performed there. His death in pitiful conditions during the Siege of Paris (1871), in the city he always loved, marked the end of an era. Auber now occupies a shadowy niche in the general consciousness as the name of the metro station nearest the Palais Garnier, and remains unknown and neglected (apart of course from Fra Diavolo), although his impact on the nineteenth-century operatic theatre was just as great as Rossini’s. The time has surely come for Auber’s life and work, especially in association with his life-long collaborator Eugène Scribe (1791-1861)—master dramatist and supreme librettist, a determining force in the history of opera—to be reassessed. Perhaps then the world will begin to hear more of Auber’s elegant gracious, life-affirming music, written to Scribe’s words. The aim of the present study is to offer an overview of the life and work of Auber by close examination of his forty operas, with consideration of origins, casting, plot, analysis of dramaturgy and musical style, and reception history. This is presented in the context of Auber's relationship to the dominant genres of early nineteenth century French culture, opéra comique and grand opéra. The three evolving periods of Auber's unique involvement with opéra comique are of principal concern. This analysis of the operas is made in the context of Auber's crucial working relationship with Scribe, who provided 38 of his libretti. Their cooperation is unique and of great importance on several literary, musical and cultural levels. The nature of their interaction and personal friendship is assessed by a translation of the extant correspondence between them, some 80 letters that have not appeared in English before. The presentation of each opera is illustrated by musical examples from all the scores, prints from the complete works of Scribe and other theatrical memorabilia. The study also contains bibliographies of Auber’s works and their contemporary arrangements, studies of Auber’s and Scribe’s life and work, their artistic and historical milieux, and a discography.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839266

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871) was long considered one of the most typically French as well as one of the most successful of the opera composers of the 19th century. Although musically gifted, he initially chose commerce as a career, but soon realized that his future lay in music. He studied under Cherubini, and it was not long before his opéra-comique La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. Perhaps the greatest turning point in Auber’s life was his meeting with the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a long and illustrious working partnership that only ended with Scribe’s death. Success followed success; works such as Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828) brought Auber public fame and official recognition. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber seems to have been fated to live in revolutionary times; during his long life no less than four revolutions took place in France (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is perhaps unsurprisingly based on revolution, depicting the 1647 Neapolitan uprising against Spanish rule. It is a key work in operatic history, and has a revolutionary history itself: it was a performance of this work in Brussels in 1830 that helped spark the revolution that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. It was a revolution that hastened Auber’s death at the old age of 89. He died on 12 May 1871 as a result of a long illness aggravated by the privations and dangers of the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. In a twist of fate, a mark had been placed on the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once instantly recognizable, favourites of the light Classical repertoire. His gracious melodies and dance rhythms had a huge influence, both on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany. Musical tastes and fashions have changed, and contemporary audiences are more accustomed to the heavier fare of verismo, Wagnerian transcendentalism, and twentieth-century experimentalism. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), are seldom performed, yet Auber’s elegant, delicate and restrained art remains as appealing to the discerning listener as ever it was. Zerline, an opera in three acts with libretto by Eugène Scribe, was first performed at the Académie nationale de musique (Salle de la rue Le Peletier) on 16 May 1851. The scene is set in Palermo, during the Restoration. The Prince of Roccanera, married to the sister of the King, has a supposed niece, Gemma. She is really his daughter by Zerline, an orange-seller. The latter was abducted by pirates, and having returned to Palermo after many trials, now meets her daughter, assuming the role of her aunt. She learns that Gemma loves a young naval officer, Rodolphe, but that the Prince’s wife wishes Gemma to marry the King’s cousin, much against the girl’s wishes. In the third act, Zerline, already alerted to an intrigue compromising to the two young lovers, is able to safeguard their integrity and bring about their union. The action is better suited to a vaudeville than an opera, and the scenario has little innate interest. The role of Zerline was devised especially for the great contralto Marietta Alboni (1823–94), the first role she created. The B-flat major overture immediately establishes the family nature of the drama, with its parable of past sins, social disparity and all-conquering maternal love. There is allusion to the Sicilian setting in the two opening choruses of act 1 which are dominated by barcarolle rhythms in establishing the couleur locale. Alboni’s magnificent talent added great value to the light music written by Auber for this slight canvas. The work consequently contains many pieces of a purely virtuoso nature. Among them are the grand air d’entrée “Ô Palerme! ô Sicile!”, the thematically central canzonetta “Achetez mes belles oranges”, and the duet for soprano and contralto “Quel trouble en mon âme” in act 1. It is as though the Italian setting of the story and the Italian origins of the prima donna caused Auber to look to his early love for Rossini, and his enduring attachment to Italian musical forms and local colour (as in Fiorella, La Muette de Portici, Fra Diavolo, Actéon, La Sirène, Zanetta and Haydée). The vocal part of Zerline is a conscious re-creation of the old Rossini mode, and her various solos are written in the style of the virtuoso contralto of the opera seria, obviously with a contemporary Gallic fleetness all Auber’s own. The Grand Air demonstrates all the features. The original cast was: Merly (Roccanera); Mlle Marietta Alboni (Zerline); Mlle Maria-Dolorès-Bénédicta-Joséphine Nau (Gemma); Aimès (Rodolphe); Mlle Dameron (the Princess of Roccanera); and Lyons (the Marquis of Bettura). The work was only performed 14 times in Paris, with no reprise. It was translated into Italian, and produced in Brussels (in French) and London (in Italian).

Fra Diavolo

D. F. E. Auber
Fra Diavolo Book PDF

Author : D. F. E. Auber
Publisher : Palala Press
Page : 74 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2018-03-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1379273390

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Fra Diavolo by D. F. E. Auber Pdf

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Ignatius Robert Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Ignatius Robert Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2011-06
Category : Operas
ISBN : 1443829390

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Ignatius Robert Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782â "1871) was long considered one of the most typically French as well as one of the most successful of the opera composers of the 19th century. Although musically gifted, he initially chose commerce as a career, but soon realized that his future lay in music. He studied under Cherubini, and it was not long before his opÃ(c)ra-comique La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. Perhaps the greatest turning point in Auberâ (TM)s life was his meeting with the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791â "1861), with whom he developed a long and illustrious working partnership that only ended with Scribeâ (TM)s death. Success followed success; works such as Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828) brought Auber public fame and official recognition. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the LÃ(c)gion dâ (TM)Honneur. Auber seems to have been fated to live in revolutionary times; during his long life no less than four revolutions took place in France (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). Auberâ (TM)s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its heroâ (TM)s name as Masaniello) is perhaps unsurprisingly based on revolution, depicting the 1647 Neapolitan uprising against Spanish rule. It is a key work in operatic history, and has a revolutionary history itself: it was a performance of this work in Brussels in 1830 that helped spark the revolution that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. It was a revolution that hastened Auberâ (TM)s death at the old age of 89. He died on 12 May 1871 as a result of a long illness aggravated by the privations and dangers of the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. In a twist of fate, a mark had been placed on the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auberâ (TM)s overtures were once instantly recognizable, favourites of the light Classical repertoire. His gracious melodies and dance rhythms had a huge influence, both on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany. Musical tastes and fashions have changed, and contemporary audiences are more accustomed to the heavier fare of verismo, Wagnerian transcendentalism, and twentieth-century experimentalism. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), are seldom performed, yet Auberâ (TM)s elegant, delicate and restrained art remains as appealing to the discerning listener as ever it was. Le Serment, an opÃ(c)ra in three acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe and Edouard Mazères, was first performed at the AcadÃ(c)mie Royale de Musique (Salle de la rue Le Peletier), on 1 October 1832. The story is set in Toulon, in 1800. The village innkeeper Andiol prefers, as his future son-in-law, an unknown man who is secretly a brigand and leader of a band of counterfeiters (Capitaine Jean), to the young farmer Edmond, who is loved by his daughter Marie. Edmond learns Jeanâ (TM)s secret but is induced to promise that he will not reveal Jeanâ (TM)s true identity. He goes off to be a soldier, returning as a successful officer. Marie is about to marry Jean, but when the truth about Jeanâ (TM)s identity is revealed, they are able to be married at last. The proportions of the OpÃ(c)ra were far too grandiose for the modest subject of Le Serment. The opera was not a great success, but maintained its place in the repertoire without interruption until 1849, although most often given without the last act. The mise en scène was much admired, depicting the interior of an inn, a Gothic chamber, and a busy street where merchants of various races dressed in native costume peddled their wares. The opera enjoyed particular popularity in Germany as Die FalschmÃ1/4nzer. The music is full of ingenious details and the orchestration is refined. The overture became well-known. It establishes three distinct thematic worlds: the pastoral world of Marie and Andiol, the busy world of the counterfeiters, and the military world of Edmondâ (TM)s patriotic adventures. There are several extended solo numbers, like the opening air for Andiol; some fine choral writing for male voices; and Capitaine Jeanâ (TM)s nautical ballad. The role of the counterfeiters presents another variant on the favoured Romantic topoi of robbers and smugglers; their activities are hidden behind stories of hauntings to keep away the curious. The tenor is given excellent opportunities in Edmondâ (TM)s arias in act 2 (â oeEn avant conscritâ ) and act 3 (â oeSalut à ́ mon paysâ ). The most famous piece in the opera is Marieâ (TM)s grand air à vocalises for the soprano (â oeDès enfance les mÃames chaÃ(R)nesâ ) in which all the most arduous difficulties of the art of singing are displayed. It was a triumph for Madame Damoreau, and served for a long time as a test piece, and was later introduced into the beginning of act 2 of the Italian version of Fra Diavolo as a more substantial and challenging alternative to Zerlineâ (TM)s aria. The original cast was: Adolphe Nourrit (Edmond); Laure Cinti-Damoreau (Marie); Henri-Bernard Dabadie (Jean); Prosper Derivis and Nicholas-Prosper Levasseur (Andiol); Ferdinand PrÃ(c)và ́t (a brigadier of the gendarmerie); and TrÃ(c)vaux (an officer). The opera remained in the repertoire from 1832 to 1849, with the 100th performance taking place on 30 March 1849. There were 102 performances in total. It was translated into English, German, Italian, Hungarian, Czech and Russian, and produced in many European cities.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839228

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first works were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. He then met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history, and helped to inspire the 1830 revolution in Brussels that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (the Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of his gracious melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, since Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and twentieth-century experimentalism. Le Lac des fées, an opéra in five acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe and Mélesville (Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier), was premiered at the Académie nationale de musique (Salle de la rue Le Peletier) on 1 April 1839. The story is derived from the tale “Der geraubte Schleier” from Johann Karl August Musäus’s Volksmärchen der Deutschen (1782–86). Musäus’s collection of fairy tales was also the basis of Wenzel Reisinger’s scenario for Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake (1877). The opera is set in the Harz Mountains and Cologne, in the fifteenth century. Albert, a young student, has fallen in love with a fairy, Zélia: she has been forced to live on earth because Albert has stolen her veil. At the last moment, however, she regains her veil from Marguerite, and disappears to her fairy sisters. To welcome her back, the Fairy Queen allows Zélia a wish: but she chooses to renounce immortality, and returns to Albert on the earth. Despite its five acts, the opera is not overtly concerned with the great historical themes usually associated with grand-opéra, but exemplifies Scribe’s third type of opera libretto (after opéra-comique and grand-opéra), derived from exotic or legendary material. However, the literary source is remarkable for its depiction of the rebellion of the people and students against the feudal lord Rodolphe—themes that have a strong affinity with the historical and political concerns of Auber’s earlier compositions, La Muette de Portici and Gustave III, and this thematic affinity is also evident in the musical aspects of the work. Much time in Le Lac des fées is taken in elaborating the central depiction of popular festivity. Indeed, the requirements of grand-opéra are realized with an original twist in the big act 3 depiction of the medieval Epiphany celebrations, with its attempt at recreating the variety of genre and mood. The composer handled this legendary and supernatural subject with a certain poetic grace and inspiration. The dramatic highpoints of the score provide impressive examples of Auber’s art. Remarkable pieces include: the overture; the cavatina for Albert “Gentille fée”; Rodolphe’s grand air “Avec addresse”; the Scene of the Fairies; Zélia’s scene of despair in act 1 and her complaint “C’en est donc fait”; the extensive duet for Zélia and Albert in act 3, and Albert’s mad scene in act 4. Of special note are the graceful and effective fairy choruses. There is also a very Romantic sense of tonal painting, with the moonlit serenity of the fairy lake conveyed in mellifluous orchestral detail. Richard Wagner arrived in Paris in 1839, and perhaps saw one of the last of the stagings. The influence of the final transformation scene must have affected him deeply—both as stagecraft and music. The original cast was: Gilbert Duprez; Mlle Maria-Dolorès-Bénédicta-Joséphine Nau; Nicholas-Prosper Levasseur; Louis-Émile Wartel; Ferdinand Prévôt and Alexis Dupont; Molinier; Rosine Stoltz; and Mlle Elian Barthélémy. Despite the cast of exceptional quality, Le Lac des fées was not a success in Paris, where it was performed 30 times, with no reprise. On the other hand, the German version of the work enjoyed great popularity; the opera was also translated into English and Polish, and produced in a number of European countries and in New York between 1839 and 1847, with revivals in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart in 1865 and 1871.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839235

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first works were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. He then met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history, and helped to inspire the 1830 revolution in Brussels that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (The Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of his gracious melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, since Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, Wagnerian transcendentalism, and twentieth-century experimentalism. Haydée, an opéra-comique in three acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe, was first performed at the Opéra-Comique (Deuxième Salle Favart), on 28 December 1847. The opera derives from Auber’s third period, and after La Muette de Portici, Fra Diavolo and Le Domino noir, was the composer’s best work. Scribe’s Venetian tale uses motifs derived from Prosper Mérimée’s novella collection La Partie de trictrac (1830) and Alexandre Dumas (père)’s novel Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1845). He obtained the central anecdote of the plot from one of Prosper Merimée’s short stories translated from Russian (“Six et quatre”), written in 1830. The opera is set in Dalmatia and Venice during the early years of the 16th century. Lorédan Grimani, a victorious Venetian admiral, is haunted by the memory that several years previously he ruined his best friend, the senator Donato, at cards through cheating. The senator killed himself that night, and in reparation Lorédan has brought up his daughter Rafaëla, and has been searching for the senator’s son, Andrea. The disquieted Lorédan is blackmailed by the unscrupulous Malipieri until the latter is killed in a duel, and it is revealed that Andrea is the long-lost son of the senator Donato. Lorédan is elevated to the dignity of doge of Venice. He reunites Rafaëla and Andrea, and himself marries his Cypriot slave, Haydée. The opera belongs to the genre of the serious opéra-comique. The chief themes are Lorédan’s pangs of conscience, Malipieri’s villainy, and the growing love between Lorédan and Haydée. Both text and music derive their strongest effect from the continual contrast between external action (nautical life, popular songs and Venetian pomp) and the convolutions of inner drama. There is hardly a weak moment in the score, and in the serious sections it achieves a height and intensity that Auber had not attained in the serious mode since La Muette de Portici (1828). This work is the most distinguished product of the third period of Auber’s career, and is one of his richest scores, a feature apparent from the musical treatment of the tenor hero, a substantial role conceived from the first with the great Gustave Roger in mind. The heroine is also depicted with subtlety. Haydée’s tender understanding, her devotion to Lorédan, the totality of her self-sacrificing love, are revealed in the course of the opera. She becomes one of Scribe’s great female characters. The strength and controlled forcefulness of the story are consistently reflected in the masterful musical conception of the score. The quasi-tragic nature of the action is underpinned in the power of the music, with its strong writing for brass and woodwind, and its very emphatic rhythms. It is ultimately a concern with psychological exploration, its reflection in formal invention and development, the elemental and local apprehension of colour, and the depiction of the Venetian spirit of military prowess and pride that give the score its unique place in the composer’s work. The roles were created by Gustave-Hippolyte Roger (Lorédan Grimani); Léonard Hermann-Léon (Malipieri); Louise Lavoye (Haydée); Sophie Grimm (Rafaëla); Marius-Pierre Audran (Andrea Donato); and Ricquier (Domenico, a sailor). Haydée was one of the most successful of all Auber’s operas, especially in Paris where, with interruptions, it was retained in the repertoire until 1894, attaining 499 performances. This edition reproduces the vocal score published in Paris by Brandus & Dufour (1848).

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839204

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first works were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. He then met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (The Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of his gracious melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, since Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, Wagnerian transcendentalism, and 20th-century experimentalism. La Muette de Portici, an opera in five acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne, was premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique (Salle de la rue Le Peletier) on 29 February 1828. The setting is Naples in 1647, against the historical background of the revolt led by the fisherman Tommaso Aniello (Masaniello) against Spanish rule. This work, of crucial importance for the genre of grand-opéra, or grandiose historical music drama, was one of the most successful of the 19th century, and became enveloped in a revolutionary mystique. This reputation took fire following a performance in Brussels on 25 August 1830 which sparked the uprising for Belgian independence from the Netherlands, and was further sustained by the events of 1848 when stagings of the opera caused tumult and demonstrations in several opera houses. La Muette de Portici is the first grand-opéra with all the typical characteristics of the genre: five short acts, most of which culminate in a dramatic and decorative tableau; ballets loosely connected with the action (in acts 1 and 3); stage sensation and mass groupings, with lavish use of décor, costumes and machinery (the wedding procession, the busy marketplace and popular uprising, the eruption of Vesuvius), characteristic situations and their appropriate type of aria. There is a group of important leading roles, powerful and functional choruses, and a much expanded reliance on the orchestra. The music responds to, and reflects, the vivid and imposing scenic effects (based on historical and pictorial research by the great stage designers and painters Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre). The music is also remarkable for its melodic abundance, the excitement of its ensembles, the verve of its dances, and the power and variety of the choruses. The contrast between the two heroines—Fenella, a mute peasant who expresses herself in gesture and dance in free-form balletic sequence; and Elvire, a glamorous princess who uses the full range of Italianate vocal genres and styles—makes a series of innate dramatic and symbolic points about power and powerlessness, authenticity of emotion, and the nature of commitment. The two tenor roles have a similarly strong, if less vivid, contrast. The prince, Alphonse, comes across as weak and vacillating, whereas Masaniello, the fisherman, is a natural leader, a man among men, whose devotion to his people, to freedom, as well as to his pathetic broken sister, mark him out as hero. The roles were created by Adolphe Nourrit (Masaniello); Alexis Dupont (Alphonse); Laure Cinti-Damoreau (Elvire); Henri-Bernard Dabadie (Pietro) and Prévot (Borella); with Pouilley, Jean-Etienne-Auguste Massol, Ferdinand Prévot and Mlle Lorotte. The dancer Lise Noblet realized the role of Fenella. The opera was one of the greatest successes at the Paris Opéra, the 100th performance taking place on the 23 April 1840, the 500th on 14 June 1880. It was also successful in other countries, especially Germany. The work was translated into German, Hungarian, English, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Danish, Polish, Norwegian, Swedish, Croatian and Russian. This edition reproduces the vocal score published by E. Troupenas (c. 1828).

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839211

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first works were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. He then met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history, and helped to inspire the 1830 revolution in Brussels that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (the Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of his gracious melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, since Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and twentieth-century experimentalism. Le Cheval de bronze was premiered at the Opéra-Comique on 23 March 1835. It was described as an opéra-féerique in three acts. The librettist, Scribe, derived the plot from the tale “Les Sept Fils du Calender” in The Arabian Nights. The scene is set in Shantung province in China in legendary times. The magical Bronze Horse of the title, which has appeared mysteriously on a nearby hill, will transport any man who climbs onto its back to the planet Venus, where a group of female sirens, led by the lovely Princess Stella, live. If the traveller in space can resist the sirens’ advances, he can return to earth with the lady of his choice; if not, he is whisked back alone, and turned to stone if he speaks of his experiences. The witty libretto, that with its exotic subject perfectly captured the taste of the time, offers differentiated characterizations, much situational comedy, and some eroticism in the Venus scenes. The score is among Auber’s best achievements, brimming over with invention: fantasy and comedy are captured perfectly, while the big love duets allow the expression of genuine feeling to break through the burlesque situations. The exotic and fairytale tone is achieved without obvious musical chinoiserie, being rather transmuted into instrumental and harmonic richness, especially in the big ensembles. This is one of the most precisely and carefully controlled of all the composer’s scores. The sense of detail and care is everywhere apparent, as in the short but beautifully crafted entr’actes to acts 2 and 3. The ensembles in act 1, especially the brilliant quintet, and the act 2 finale are remarkable. The thematic integration is extraordinary, and in some instances achieves a genuine use of Leitmotif. The overture presents all the essential elements of the story in powerful symbolic summary. It is dominated by the central image of the Bronze Horse, the agent of magical adventure and transformation. The enterprising Péki, as the heroine and a redemptrix figure, shares something of the Horse’s dynamism. The most obvious motif of the Bronze Horse and its magic power comes from Péki’s act 1 ballad in which she explains the mysterious presence of the mythical creature on its high promontory: “Là-bas, sur ce rocher sauvage”. The roles were created by Auguste Féréol (Tsing-Sing), Louis-Benoît-Alphonse Révial (Prince Yang), Jean-Francois Inchindi [Hinnekindt] (Tchin-Kao), Étienne-Bernard-Auguste Thénard (Yanko), Félicité Pradher (Péki), Sophie Ponchard (Tao-Jin), Marie Casimir (Princess Stella), and Mlle Fargueil (Lo Mangli). The opera was initially a hit, with 84 performances in the first year, and over the next few years was staged in numerous countries from London (Covent Garden 1835) to Russia (St Petersburg 1837) and the United States (New York 1837), but then sank into an undeserved obscurity. The work was revived in expanded form at the Opéra on 21 September 1857, and famously by Engelbert Humperdinck at Karlsruhe, in his own arrangement (10 November 1889). It was performed in concert in Vienna (1953), Berne (1969) and Paris (1979). This edition reproduces the vocal score published in Paris by E. Troupenas (1835).

Opéra-Comique

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Op ra Comique Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 780 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2010-04-16
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443821681

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Opéra-Comique by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Opéra-comique, like grand opéra, a specifically French genre of opera, emerged from the political changes and intellectual discussion that played a recurrent role in determining the nature of artistic expression and production in Paris from the late 17th until the mid-18th centuries. Opéra-comique is distinguished by its use of spoken dialogue to link the arias and sung parts, and its more restrained use of recitatives. It emerged out of the popular entertainments, called opéras-comiques en vaudevilles, that were a feature of the theatres held at the seasonal Parisian fairs of St Germain and St Laurent, and of the Comédie-Italienne. The similarity of the entertainments provided by the Comédie-Italienne and the fairs resulted in their amalgamation on 3 February 1756, when they established a theatre for their joint productions, the Hôtel Bourgogne. Their type of entertainment, combining existing popular tunes with spoken sections, lent its generic name to this house, which, regardless of its changing venue, would become known as the Opéra-Comique. The genre of opéra-comique exercised a powerful popular appeal because of its unique fusion of fixed musical form with fluid improvised dialogue. The well-known airs of the day, invariably strophic, came to be the genre’s staple medium of artistic expression—the couplets. But opéra-comique was not necessarily comic or light in nature. Indeed, the most famous example, Bizet’s Carmen (1875), is a tragedy. The genre, with its unique mixture of comedy and drama, its captivating musical fluency, its handling of serious and Romantic themes—expertly crafted by its most famous librettist Augustin-Eugène Scribe (1791-1861)—became universally popular in the masterpieces of its heyday between 1820 and 1870: Adrien Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche (1825), Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s Fra Diavolo (1830) and Le Domino noir (1837), Ferdinand Hérold’s Zampa (1831) and Le Pré aux clercs (1832), Fromental Halévy’s L’Éclair (1835) and Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon (1866). The history of the opéra-comique between 1762 and 1915 reflects the political and cultural life of France—from the last days of the ancien régime, through the tumult of the Revolution and Napoleonic era, the July Monarchy and Second Empire, to the shattering defeat of France by Prussia in 1870. After this, apart from isolated works (by Bizet, Delibes, Offenbach, Massenet), new works by the younger generation of musicians now tended to be French adaptations of the Wagnerian aesthetic and the record of success is very thin. Hardly any native French works in this imitative mode premiered at the Opéra-Comique between 1870 and 1915 have survived—apart from Debussy’s unique Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). This study serves as a sourcebook for this very French genre, with details of forgotten composers, their operas—performance dates, plot summaries, the singers who created them, the names of important numbers in the works (from libretti and scores that are either now to be found only in the Paris libraries, or are lost completely), often with contemporary observations about the reception of particular works, the effectiveness of their dramaturgy and music. It provides a resource for operatic culture and convention, from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. The record of the fortunes of the Opéra-Comique provides a way into the changing culture and aesthetic values of an age.

La Muette de Portici

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
La Muette de Portici Book PDF

Author : Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Publisher : Tredition Classics
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2013-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 3849559920

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Cette uvre (edition relie) fait partie de la serie TREDITION CLASSICS. La maison d'edition tredition, basee a Hambourg, a publie dans la serie TREDITION CLASSICS des ouvrages anciens de plus de deux millenaires. Ils etaient pour la plupart epuises ou uniquement disponible chez les bouquinistes. La serie est destinee a preserver la litterature et a promouvoir la culture. Avec sa serie TREDITION CLASSICS, tredition a comme but de mettre a disposition des milliers de classiques de la litterature mondiale dans differentes langues et de les diffuser dans le monde entier.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-25
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443839259

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first works were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. He then met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero’s name as Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history, and helped to inspire the 1830 revolution in Brussels that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (the Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s overtures were once known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of his gracious melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, since Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and twentieth-century experimentalism. Rêve d’amour, an opéra-comique in three acts, with libretto by Adolphe-Philippe Dennery (Adolphe Philippe) and Eugène Cormon (Pierre-Etienne Piestre), was first performed at the Opéra-Comique (Deuxième Salle Favart) on 20 December 1869. It was Auber’s last work. The story is set in the French countryside, in the 18th century. It concerns the peasant farmer Marcel and the vicissitudes of his love for both his cousin Denise and the wealthy heiress Henriette. The latter is in turn, however, loved by the gallant Chevalier. To prove himself, Marcel leaves and becomes a successful soldier. He is eventually united with Denise, while Henriette marries the Chevalier. The scenario is without great interest, but the score is of musical worth. The short binary overture is charming and full of fresh ideas. It neatly juxtaposes the two male protagonists, and the overall thematic pull between the dream of love and the glory of soldierly prowess. It is a lovely pastorale that reaches its climax in a mood of great playfulness. Act 2 takes one into the heart of the pastoral experience explored in this opera. It opens with a charming scene of Colin-Maillard (blindman’s buff) and a Villanelle, while the extended finale—a lovely waltz followed by Marcel’s embracing of the soldier’s life—counterposes the archetypal polarity of the pastoral and military traditions of the opéra-comique. The military solution to the hero’s emotional dilemma is also the determining action in Auber’s earlier works La Fiancée and Le Philtre. For the premiere stage set one of the charming scenes of Lancret was reproduced, complemented by costumes and décor modelled on those of Watteau. The Balançoire and the Colin-Maillard were ingeniously re-created by the stage designers to sustain the illusion of this last pastoral dream of love. The cast consisted of: Joseph-Amédée-Victor Capoul (Marcel); Mlle Marguerite-Marie-Sophie Priola (Henriette); Mlle Maria-Dolorès-Bénédicta-Joséphine Nau (Denise); Mlle Caroline Girard (Marion); Charles-Louis Sainte-Foy (Andoche, a peasant); Victor Prilleux (Bertrand, a farmer); Pierre Gailhard (Le chevalier de Bois-Joli); and Julien (Thomas, a peasant). The opera was in the repertoire 1869–70, and numbered 27 performances. Performances were interrupted in 1870 by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, and never resumed.

The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Robert Ignatius Letellier
The Overtures of Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 467 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2011-01-18
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443827935

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The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

The overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871), once as popular as those of Gioacchino Rossini and Franz von Suppé, were formerly known everywhere, a staple of the light Classical repertoire. The influence of Auber’s melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire, but some of their overtures live on vicariously, and sound brilliant and charming when given the chance—The Bronze Horse, Masaniello, The Crown Diamonds, Fra Diavolo, The Black Domino. The freshness of the melody, the incision of the orchestral colours, and the rhythmic vitality are still capable of generating a visceral excitement. Auber, the most amiable French composer of the 19th century, came to his abilities late in life. After a stalled commercial career, he studied with Cherubini. His first operas were not a success, but La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. It was at this time that he met the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), with whom he established a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribe’s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auber’s life was filled with success. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. Auber’s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (Masaniello) is a key work in operatic history, and helped to inspire the revolution in Brussels that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auber himself experienced four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). The latter (The Commune) hastened the end of his life. He died on 12 May 1871, at the advanced old age of 89, and in the pitiful conditions of civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris. He refused to leave the city he had always loved despite the dangers and privation, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. By some irony a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of La Muette de Portici, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber’s elegant and restrained art now has little appeal for the world of music, attuned as it is to meatier substance of verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and twentieth-century experimentalism. But he was once a household name, and his pared style, fleet rhythms and restrained emotion were a byword of taste. This collection brings together 40 of Auber’s overtures, from his first great success with La Bergère Châtelaine, to his last opera, written at the age of 87, Rêve d’Amour, and including the concert overture he wrote in 1862 for the London Exhibition. Auber adopted the Rossinian adaptation of the overture genre, a sonata form with foreshortened development (or a sequential passage for transition back to the recapitulation). His handling of this basic structure remained consistent throughout his career, and followed three or four differing approaches, but always invested with his characteristic verve, rhythmic élan, clarity of texture, and brilliance of orchestration. In all, the overtures, especially when viewed as a corpus, present a journey through the creative life of composer dedicated to musical drama, who always remained the perfect exemplar of a certain French style and elegance—even in his serious works.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Ignatius Robert Letellier
Daniel Fran ois Esprit Auber Book PDF

Author : Ignatius Robert Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2011-05
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1443828963

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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber by Ignatius Robert Letellier Pdf

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782â "1871), once one of the most well-known and well-loved names in French 19th-century opera, came later in life than many famous composers to his art, yet had one of the longest and most successful careers. He studied with Cherubini after abandoning an initial attempt to establish a career in commerce, and experienced his first real triumph at the age of 38 with La Bergère Châteleine (1820). His subsequent association with the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791â "1861), a collaboration that lasted until Scribeâ (TM)s death, became one of the most famous and successful partnerships in musical history. Works such as Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828) cemented Auberâ (TM)s popularity with the public and drew official recognition and honours. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the LÃ(c)gion dâ (TM)Honneur. Auberâ (TM)s grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its heroâ (TM)s name as Masaniello), a work of great significance in the history of opera, is set against a background of revolution and uprisingâ "a situation that Auber knew only too well. He lived through four French Revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870), dying at the advanced age of 89 in the desperate conditions of the Commune, of a long-standing illness aggravated by the dangers and privations that attended the Siege of Paris. Auber had always loved his home city, and was not prepared to leave it, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. Ironically, a mark had been placed against the house of the composer of La Muette de Portici, a man so successful in depicting revolutionary fervour that a performance of this opera in Brussels in 1830 had helped to inspire the revolution that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. Auberâ (TM)s charming and graceful overtures were once staples of the light Classical repertoire, known and loved everywhere. His gracious melodies and dance rhythms had an overwhelming influence on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany. His operas, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), have virtually passed out of the repertoire. Contemporary audiences are not attuned to Auberâ (TM)s elegant and restrained art, accustomed as they are to verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and 20th-century experimentalism, but those willing to listen are rewarded by works that retain all their freshness, delicacy and charm. La Barcarolle, an opÃ(c)ra-comique in three acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe, was premiered at the OpÃ(c)ra-Comique (Deuxième Salle Favart) on 22 April 1845. The opera is set in Parma in the 18th century, and the story involves a tale of artistic rivalry and social aspiration in the midst of Court intrigue. The Count de Fiesque gives his half-brother, the composer Fabio, the poem to a barcarolle which Fabio is to set to music, and thus bring his work to the attention of the Grand Duke. The Kapellmeister Cafarini and the Marquis de Felino, who are seeking advancement at court themselves, secretly copy the poem, set it to the music they overhear Fabio singing, and send it to the Duchess. The Grand Duke discovers the barcarolle, suspects the Count of being an admirer of his wife, and has him arrested. Fabio learns through Cafariniâ (TM)s niece Gina of the Kapellmeisterâ (TM)s part in the plot, and having been forbidden entry to the Dukeâ (TM)s concert, disguises himself as a member of the orchestra and places the parts to his barcarolle on the music stands. Gina saves Fabio from arrest by producing the music in Cafariniâ (TM)s handwriting; the Kapellmeister disentangles himself by identifying the Marquisâ (TM)s draft. The Duke pardons everyone. The libretto is simply structured, but the action moves forward most skilfully. Traces of topical humour characteristic of the original comÃ(c)die-vaudeville that the libretto was derived from have been retained in the dialogue, even though these elements have been fundamentally toned down. This creates an unconscious and slightly discordant duality between the spoken and musical numbers. The Marquis is not altogether convincing as a villain, and his intrigues to imprison the Count and exile Fabio seem exaggerated and out of context. Auberâ (TM)s music is elegant, pliable and distinguished, like all his work. Many motifs recall memories from earlier works. The soprano air for Gina in act 1 (â oePersonne en ces lieux ne mâ (TM)a vueâ ) and the comic duet for two basses (â oeViens, que par toi nos musesâ ) offer good musical declamation. There is a touching duet in act 1 for Fabio and the Count, in which they celebrate their kinship. The Barcarolle itself serves as a Leitmotif, presented imaginatively in various forms throughout the workâ "solo, duet, quintet, sextet, and finally quartet at the end of the opera. Of the sixteen numbers in the score, eight are duets, six of them for male voices, and two for the two basses. The score also tunes into a tradition of satireâ "both of musicians and artists, and of musical styles, in the manner of the most famous French example, the enduringly popular Le MaÃ(R)tre de chapelle (1821) by Ferdinando Paër. The original cast were: Gustave-Hippolyte Roger (Fabio), Chaix (Felino), LÃ(c)onard Hermann-LÃ(c)on (Cafarini), Edouard Gassier (Count de Fiesque), Anoinette-Jeanne-Hermance RÃ(c)villy (ClÃ(c)lia), and Mlle Octavie Delille (Gina). The work did not last beyond the year of its premiere, 1845. There were 27 performances. After the economic slump of 1845, frivolous tales found little public response, and this may well have turned normally receptive listeners away from this work in which the collaboration between Scribe and Auber is subtle but essentially most effective.

Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots

Robert Ignatius Letellier
Meyerbeer s Les Huguenots Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2014-06-02
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443860840

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Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

On 29 February 1836, Les Huguenots, a grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864), with words by Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) and Émile Deschamps (1791–1871), was performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra. It was to be one of the most successful productions ever staged at the Opéra, with 1,126 performances in Paris over the next hundred years, and, in the process, breaking all box office records. It became Meyerbeer’s most popular work, with thousands of stagings throughout the world. Les Huguenots is a huge exploration of faith, tolerance, hatred, extermination, love, loyalty, self-sacrifice and hope in despair. It is the first panel in a central diptych on the Reformation, at the heart of the wider tetralogy of Meyerbeer’s grand operas, where issues of power, religion and love are examined in a variety of modes. For five years after the sensational premiere of Robert le Diable, Meyerbeer worked on this gigantic drama, partly adapted by Scribe from Prosper Mérimée’s Chronique de Charles IX. Meyerbeer matches the text in drama, splendour and ceremony: it combines theatricalism with profound depths of feeling. Its gorgeous colouring, intense passion, consistency of dramatic treatment, and careful delineation of character secured for this work vast fame and influence. It was an epoch-making opera, an enduring monument to Meyerbeer’s fame. The music for this sombre tapestry of the Saint Bartholomew Massacre springs from the core of the vivid action, and creates a panoramic alternation of moods, that capture the tragedy of religious intolerance and personal anguish in one of the most fraught events in history, when some 30,000 French Protestants were murdered during 24 August 1574. Meyerbeer’s music rises to the occasion, and reaches sublime heights of music drama, especially in the fourth and fifth acts, with the Blessing of the Daggers (one of the most electric scenes in all opera), the more powerful Love Duet, and the Trio of Martyrdom in the last moments of the opera. Spectacle was incorporated in the plot, in Meyerbeer’s concern to conjure up the couleur locale of those heroic times. In spite of the overwhelming dramatic power and the instrumental riches of the score, the most significant aspect of the work came to be regarded as the supremacy of the seven principal vocal parts. Performances of Les Huguenots at the Metropolitan Opera in New York during the 1890s were among the most famous in operatic history.

The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus

Robert Ignatius Letellier
The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus Book PDF

Author : Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2008-10-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781443800808

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The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus by Robert Ignatius Letellier Pdf

The composer Ludwig Minkus represents one of music’s biggest mysteries. Who was he? Hardly anything is known about him, and yet he occupied an influential position in the theatres of the Imperial ballet in late nineteenth-century Russia. He has been recognised as a predecessor of Tchaikovsky, but as a musician is commonly held to have been so feeble as to be beneath contempt. Yet despite the scorn heaped on him, and his consequent obscurity, Minkus is far from being forgotten. Since the early 1960s his name has slowly begun to re-surface. Two works, Don Quixote (1869) and La Bayadère (1877), have been presented in their entirety for the first time to new audiences all over the world. The musical and dramatic power of both ballets has taken people by surprise. The stories have a very real human appeal, the choreography attracts the admiration of balletomanes, and the music, with its rhythm, verve, and beauty of melody, holds attention and engages the heart wherever it is heard. This introduction seeks to discover something more behind the blank façade of Minkus’s life and work. What do we actually know about him as a man and as an artist? Are we able to apprehend his oeuvre as a whole, and how much can we establish from the available material? What is the nature of the music he created for those few works that have survived the years, and that have come to the fore again recently to delight those who have ears to hear? This study includes iconography from the life and times of the composer, many musical examples from his works, and a comprehensive bibliography and discography.