Virtual Music Rare Book Room - 171 Matching Results
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- Les Elemens
- This four-act ballet was premiered on 22 December 1721 at the Tullieries and, later, performed at L'Academie Royale de Musique on 29 May 1725 and 27 May 1734, and at the Theatre on 22 May 1742. Various dramatis personae present an allegorical depiction of the French court.
- Dardanus : nouvelle tragédie
- Dardanus went through a number of revisions from the time of its premiere in 1739 until its final eighteenth-century run at the Opéra in 1771. The version in the Virtual Rare Book Room was first performed in 1744; the last three acts exhibit extensive plot changes from the first edition. The final version in 1760 received the most positive acclaim, especially compared to the criticisms that were made about the nonsensical plot of the first version. By this point, however, the polemic between the Lullistes and the Ramistes, which had surrounded the premiere, had subsided.
- Platée : comédie-ballet
- Jacques Autreau’s play Platée, ou Junon jalouse was based on a story by a second-century Greek author named Pausanias who chronicled his travels (including rituals and traditions) in ten books that represent the different regions of Greece. At the time Le Valois d’Orville appropriated Autreau’s drama for a libretto, it was uncommon for French court operas to include comic features, and even Autreau’s spoken play lacked the comic tone of the opera. Yet, the humor extends beyond the plot; for instance, the sounds of frogs and birds are represented instrumentally. Platée was first performed at Versailles for the wedding of the dauphin and Princess Maria Theresa of Spain in 1745.
- Æglé: ballet en un acte représenté devant le roi sur le Théâtre des petits appartemens, a Versailles, le 13 janvier 1748, et repris le 25 fevrier 1750, et mis au Théâtre de l'Académie royale de musique, le 18 fevrier 1751
- Reduced score of Pierre de Lagarde's Æglé.
- Fileuse: parodie d'Omphale
- Lyrics for the opera "Fileuse: parodie d'Omphale" comprising 11 scenes, with a melody for one of the last pieces.
- Titon Et L'Aurore
- This three-act opera (Monsigny's Op. 8) is dedicated to Monseigneur le Prince de Soubise and was premiered at L'Academie Royalle de Musique on 9 January 1753. This full score opens with a letter of dedication from the composer to his patron and closes with a document describing royal publishing privilege.
- Amour au village : opera-comique, en un acte, et en vaudeviles
- Libretto for Charles-Simon Favart's 1754 opera L'amour au village. Charles-Simon Favart gained prominence for his parodies of extant operas during the middle of the eighteenth century. His L’amour au village (1754), a typical example of the genre, was based on Carolet’s L’amour paysan (1737). The parody technique consisted of setting new texts to existing melodies and writing new dialogue based on a familiar plot. L’amour au village includes a typical vaudeville finale. In the Virtual Rare Book Room’s volume, the melody is included along with the first verse’s text. Because vaudeville finales are strophic (with one repeated melody), the subsequent verses are numbered to indicate each time the melody should begin again.
- Le trompeur trompe, ou, La rencontre imprevue. Opera-comique en un acte. Represente pour la premiere fois sur le Theatre de la Foire S. Germain, le 18 fevrier 1754.
- In the mid-eighteenth century, comic opera librettos served a dual purpose, as evinced by the libretto to Vadé ’s Trompeur trompé (1754). Although the primary function of the publication was to allow audience members to follow along with the text of the opera, solo airs were printed in the back of the book. Not all the melodies are included, but those printed in the libretto enhance our understanding of an opera the music of which was never published as a comprehensive musical score.
- Oeuvres de M. Vade, ou recueil des opera-comiques, & parodies qu'il a donnes depuis quelques annees; avec les airs, rondes, & vaudevilles notes; & autres ouvrages du meme auteur.
- Jean-Joseph Vadé’s popularity as a composer and librettist is evident in the publication of his collected works, which first appeared in 1755 but was expanded in 1758, a year after his death. Vadé’s œuvre consists of mostly opéras comiques, some with original music rather than preexisting tunes. The collected works editions include fictional correspondence and poetry. Vadé’s interest in capturing the bustling atmosphere of fish markets is evident in such works as Les quatre bouquets poissards and the poem La pipe cassée, which is classified as a “poëme epitragipoissardiheroicomique.” Melodies for operatic airs are also printed in this volume. Although Vadé claimed authorship of the music, some were familiar tunes that had existed before Vadé appropriated them.
- Servante maîtresse : comédie en deux actes mêlée d'ariettes
- The intermezzo La serva padrona first appeared between the acts of Pergolesi’s Il prigioniero superbo in 1733. This was the standard way in which to present an intermezzo. The work served as comic relief in the midst of more solemn opera serie, and incorporated elements of the improvisational commedia del’arte tradition. For instance, the few characters are drawn from stock types, such as the servant Serpina.
- Cendrillon
- Libretto of the 1759 pastiche-style comic opera "Cendrillon," by Louis Anseaume. The songs were contributed by the singer-composer Jean-Louis Laruette and Egidio Duni, which they likely adapted from fashionable tunes. "Cendrillon" (Cinderella in English) premiered in Paris at Foire St-Germain on February 21, 1759. The opera underwent two revisions before the definitive version of 1764. Anseaume adapted the plot the fairy tale by Charles Perrault. This copy includes (from pp.54-63) notated melodies of airs and recitatives.
- Le cadi dupé, opéra bouffon en un acte, representé sur le Théatre de l'opera comique
- The figured bass is unrealized in the full score of this one-act comic opera. Sung French text is underlaid; spoken text is printed before and after each song.
- Le roy et le fermier
- This three-act opera was premiered at the Comédie Italien on 22 November 1762.
- Les deux chasseurs et la laitière; comédie en un acte
- Undated score of Egidio Duni's opera Les deux chaussures et la laitière. Duni’s French style was shaped by the developments of the War of the Buffoons, which pitted French tragic opera against Italian comic opera. The newly emergent opéra comique genre, for which Duni is still considered to be one of the major contributors, combined elements of both styles. His significance in the development of opéra comique is evident in the long-term success of Les deux chasseurs et la laitière, which was performed at the Comédie-Italien until 1792, almost twenty years after the composer’s death.
- Les deux chasseurs et la laitière; comédie en un acte
- Duni’s French style was shaped by the developments of the War of the Buffoons, which pitted French tragic opera against Italian comic opera. The newly emergent opéra comique genre, for which Duni is still considered to be one of the major contributors, combined elements of both styles. His significance in the development of opéra comique is evident in the long-term success of Les deux chasseurs et la laitière, which was performed at the Comédie-Italien until 1792, almost twenty years after the composer’s death.
- Le tonnelier
- Libretto of the comic opera "Le tonnelier" (The cooper) by Nicolas-Médard Audinot in collaboration with Antoine-François Quétant. The music of this one-act opera is a pasticcio of works by Gossec and other contemporaneous composers. Typical of the genre, the opera contains a variety of musical forms (airs, romance, vaudeville, and recitatives) and the dialogues are interspersed with additional airs, possibly using popular tunes. This copy includes (on pp. 52 and 54-56) notated melodies of airs.
- Le cadi dupé
- This is a 1766 copy of the libretto of the one-act comic opera "Le cadi dupé" (The duped judge), by Pierre René Lemonnier to music by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny. The first performance of the opera took place at the Paris Foire St-Germain on 4 February 1761. Christoph Willibald Gluck's music replaced that of Monsigny's for the 8 December 1761 performance at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
- Tom Jones; comedie lyrique en trois actes
- Philidor’s Tom Jones is representative of the continental interest in English literature. Henry Fielding’s homonymous novel served as the foundation for Philidor’s opera, but Philidor pared down the story quite a bit, especially downplaying Tom’s philandering ways. Many secondary characters and situations were also cut, a common technique that librettists employ when adapting prose writings to the stage. Thus, a central plot unfolds in a manner that the audience can follow, and the length remains manageable for an evening’s entertainment.
- Le Huron : comedie en deux actes, et en vers
- Grétry’s Le Huron takes as its source a short story called L’ingénu (Geneva, 1767), written by Voltaire under the name Dulaurens. The story was banned two months after its publication due to anti-government themes. For instance, the young man raised by the Hurons (the title character of the opera) was imprisoned for expressing his radical ideas about issues such as the treatment of the Huguenots. Voltaire’s character is derived from another source, the novel Bélisaire by Marmontel, in which a man is framed for a crime and awaiting the death penalty before being released. Marmontel, who corresponded regularly with Voltaire, created the libretto for Grétry’s opera. However, most controversial aspects of the story were eliminated or downplayed for the censors, and as a result, the anti-religious message is absent from Le Huron.
- Le déserteur; drame en trois actes representé par les Comediens italiens ordinaires du roi le 6 mars 1769, Gravé par Mlle, Vendôme et le Sr. Moria
- This three-act opera is dedicated to His Most Serene Highness Monseigneur Duke of Orleans and premiered on 6 March 1769 at les Comediens italiens ordinaires du roi. This full score opens with a letter of dedication from the composer to his patron.
- Le tableau parlant: comédie parade en un acte et en vers: Œuvre III: dédé à Monseigneur Le Duc de Choiseul
- Score for André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry's Le tableau parlant.
- Extrait des airs françois de tous les operas nouveaux, qui ont eté representés: Appropriés pour le chant ou la flute avec la basse continue., Partie I.
- This collection of opera arias is scored for either one or two voices with continuo (with figures) and, for some songs, obbligato flute.
- Silvain
- This one-act opera to a libretto by Marmontel is dedicated "a son Altesse Royale Monseigneur Le Prince Charles de Pologne." This full score features a catalogue of Grétry's music on the verso of the title page. The opera was premiered in Paris on 19 February 1770 at the Comédie-Italiènne.
- Pigmalion
- This is the 1773 edition of the libretto to the comic opera and vaudeville, "Pigmalion" by Charles-François Panard and Thomas Laffichard. The opera premiered at the Paris Opéra Comique in 1735 . The plot is an adaptation of Ovid's story of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue that he carved. Operatic and ballet representation of the subject of Pigmalion (or Pygmalion) became famous after Antoine Houdar de la Motte's entrée "La sculpture" for the ballet "Le triomphe des arts," which staged in 1700 at Académie Royale de Musique with music by Michel de la Barre. Page 16 of this edition was incorrectly numbered as number 10.
- Extrait des airs françois
- This collection of opera arias is scored for either one, two, or three voices with continuo (with figures). Some songs call for an obbligato violin. An alphabetical table of contents is located at the end of the volume.
- Alceste: tragedie opera en trois actes
- According to Grove Music, "when Admetus, King of Pherae in Thessaly, is ill and about to die an oracle announces that he will be saved if someone else is willing to die in his stead. His wife Alcestis displays her conjugal devotion by offering herself; she dies and Admetus recovers. Under the influence of tragédie lyrique, Calzabigi enriched his libretto with choruses, ballets and opportunities for impressive scenery."
- Colonie : opéra comique en deux actes
- La colonie is Nicolas Etienne Framery’s French parody of Sacchini’s Italian L’isola d’amore, which was premiered during the 1766 Roman carnival. However, Framery chose music in a pastiche-like fashion from various Sacchini operas, without actually using any arias from L’isola d’amore. Although the operas that Sacchini specifically composed for Paris faced resistance from opponents of foreign composers, La colonie received praise from critics. The 1775 French premiere at the Comédie-Italienne was quite successful; the work even drew comparisons with Pergolesi’s wildly popular La serva padrona.
- Momie
- This is a ca. 1778 libretto for the burlesque opera in three acts "Momie" by a Jean Étiennethat Despréaux. The opera is a parody based on Leblanc du Roullet's libretto of "Iphigénie en Aulide," an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck. The libretto includes the titles of the tunes at the opening of each scene. Page 6 of the library's copy is incorrectly numbered as page 9.
- Echo et Narcisse, drame lyrique en trois actes
- After the resounding success of Iphigénie en Tauride (1779), Gluck set out to compose his last of the seven Paris operas, which turned out to be his final opera. Whereas Iphigénie en Tauride is often considered Gluck’s best opera, its immediate successor, Echo et Narcisse (1779) was ill-fated and quickly disappeared from the repertoire. Echo was premiered a mere four months after Tauride, and the Parisian audience was not prepared for the differences between these two operas. Although the music resembles that of his other French operas, the pastoral story lacks the dramatic intensity that viewers expected in a Gluck opera. Thus, the serene music—though it is at times quite beautiful— lacks dramatic impulse.
- Atys : tragédie lyrique en trois actes
- The story of Atys was first known operatically through Lully’s opera that premiered in 1676 at the court of St Germain-en-Laye. Marmontel adapted Quinault’s libretto and modified it by removing the prologue and divertissements. He also altered the plot; in lieu of Ovid’s metamorphic ending (to which Quinault had adhered), Atys commits suicide.
- Atys : tragédie lyrique en trois actes
- The story of Atys was first known operatically through Lully’s opera that premiered in 1676 at the court of St Germain-en-Laye. Marmontel adapted Quinault’s libretto and modified it by removing the prologue and divertissements. He also altered the plot; in lieu of Ovid’s metamorphic ending (to which Quinault had adhered), Atys commits suicide.
- Iphigénie en Tauride. Tragédie lirique en quatre actes
- The contrast between Piccinni and Gluck can perhaps best be illustrated with Iphigénie en Tauride, as Piccinni’s opera appeared just two years after Gluck’s work on the same subject. In fact, supporters of Piccinni (“Piccinnistes”) hoped that the Italian composer would demonstrate the superiority of his style with Iphigénie, and scholars have used these settings to illustrate the difference between the two composers.
- Mélomanie : opera comique en un acte en vers mêlé d'ariettes mis en musique
- During his early career, Champein was known for church music composed while he worked as music master at the collegiate church in Pignon (in the southern Provence region of France). He moved to Paris and established himself as an operatic composer; La mélomanie (1781) is one of his most famous operas, and it remained in the repertoire at the Opéra-Comique until 1829. La mélomanie actually mocks the debate between French and Italian styles of music, with Fugantini as an Italian who is rejected by the French Elise. References to harmony (a French feature) and melody (emphasized by advocates of Italian music) abound in the opera.
- Colinette à la cour ou La double épreuve : comédie lyrique en trois actes
- A comparison of the scores for Colinette à la cour and Barbe-bleue illustrates the primary distinguishing factor between the genres of comédie lyrique and opera comique: the method of dialogue delivery. In Paris, the issue of genre was tied to the performance venue of a particular opera, due to government regulations. Although comic opera was traditionally presented with spoken dialogue, as in opera comique, when Grétry composed for the Opéra, where recitative was expected, he merged comic subject matter with the sung dialogue heard in serious opera.
- L'infante de Zamora: opéra comique en trois actes
- Full score for Giovanni Paisiello's L'infante de Zamora.
- Armide: Drame héroique, mis en musique
- Armide was premiered at the Paris Opéra on September 23, 1777, recalling the earlier success of Lully’s opera of the same name, which premiered nearly a century earlier on February 15, 1686. After collaborating on several reform operas with Calzabigi, Gluck revived the older dramatic tradition of Quinault (Lully's librettist) by setting the older text in the modern musical style. The seventeenth-century five act model requires more continuous music, with few distinct arias, as well as divertissements and spectacular effects. Gluck also respects the tragic conclusion endemic to the model, avoiding the modern practice of the lieto fine ("happy ending") in which misfortunes are reversed at the last possible moment.
- Armide: Drame héroique, mis en musique
- Armide was premiered at the Paris Opéra on September 23, 1777, recalling the earlier success of Lully’s opera of the same name, which premiered nearly a century earlier on February 15, 1686. After collaborating on several reform operas with Calzabigi, Gluck revived the older dramatic tradition of Quinault (Lully's librettist) by setting the older text in the modern musical style. The seventeenth-century five act model requires more continuous music, with few distinct arias, as well as divertissements and spectacular effects. Gluck also respects the tragic conclusion endemic to the model, avoiding the modern practice of the lieto fine ("happy ending") in which misfortunes are reversed at the last possible moment.
- Orphée et Euridice; tragédie; opéra en trois actes
- The Viennese premiere of Orfeo was extremely well received, and Gluck decided to revise the opera as Orphée et Eurydice for Paris in 1774, with the French adaptation and additions provided by Pierre Louis Moline. The role of Orpheus was lowered slightly for an haute-contre singer (a male operatic voice type more in line with an alto range), adhering to French preferences. The opera was lengthened, to create a more magnificent spectacle, with extra arias, ensembles, and instrumental numbers. Gluck also modified the orchestration to accommodate the orchestra at the Académie Royale de Musique. This version, Orphée et Eurydice, became one of the most popular operas in France.
- Renaud : tragedie lyrique en trois actes
- Sacchini’s first opera for the French stage was Renaud. Although he had the support of Marie Antoinette, Sacchini quickly learned that foreign (especially Italian) composers in Paris faced difficulties. The premiere of Renaud was intentionally delayed in an attempt to highlight Sacchini’s privilege with the queen, and the opera did not enjoy immediate success, even from Piccinni’s supporters. However, Renaud went on to be performed frequently, appearing as late as 1815.
- Chimène, ou, le Cid: tragédie lyrique en trois actes
- A 1784 edition of Sacchini's Chimène, ou, le Cid. A label is pasted over original publishing imprint, and reads: Chez Imbault marchand de musique au mont d'or rue st honoré et la rue de Poulies NO. 627.
- Les Danaïdes, tragédie lirique en cinq actes
- Antonio Salieri began work on Les Danaïdes upon the recommendation of Gluck, whose health prevented him from fulfilling a commission for the work. Although Salieri was living in Vienna, the tragedie-lyrique was written for the Opéra in Paris, with a libretto by François Louis Gand Leblanc Roullet and Ludwig Theodor Tschudi based on Calzabigi’s Italian libretto.
- Dardanus : tragédie lyrique en quatre actes
- Like Renaud, Sacchini’s second French opera, Dardanus, faced problems due in large part to the composer’s Italian heritage. The opera is based on Rameau’s Dardanus, which had been a topic of earlier dispute between the Lullistes and the Ramistes. After an initially disappointing reception, Dardanus was reduced from four acts to three. In its first form, the opera received only six performances, but the three-act version was performed more than thirty times during the eighteenth century. Dardanus went on to enjoy several productions in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
- Épreuve villageoise : opéra bouffon en deux actes en vers
- L’épreuve villageoise started out as Théodore et Paulin before Grétry convinced Desforges to rewrite the libretto. The original three-act opera was reduced to two acts, and the improbabilities of the original plot were reworked. Théodore et Paulin received one performance at Versailles on 5 March 1784, but it was never published. L’épreuve villageoise appeared at the Comédie-Italienne on 24 June 1784. This revision remained one of the most popular of Grétry’s opéra-comiques, receiving performances throughout the nineteenth century.
- Le devin du village
- As with many French operas, Rousseau’s Le devin du village was first staged for the court, appearing at Fountainebleau on 18 October 1752. The work was then performed at the Paris Opéra on 1 March 1753. The historical importance of this short intermè is closely tied to its role in the famous Querelle de bouffons, a debate about the merits of French serious opera in comparison to Italian comic opera (especially Pergolesi’s La serva padrona).
- Panurge dans l'Isle des Lanternes : comédie lirique en trois actes
- Panurge, like Colinette à la cour, features recitative, rather than spoken dialogue. In his memoirs, Grétry recognized Panurge for being the first comic opera to enjoy a successful run at the Opéra, and he saw it as a turning point for this theater, which traditionally presented serious plots (Grétry, Memoires; ou, Essais sur la musique, 377). The overture to Panurge was featured on concerts in the nineteenth century, and although the opera eventually disappeared from the repertoire, its long stint was noted as late as 1866, by which time it was no longer being performed (Crozet, Revue de la musique dramatique en France, 275-76).
- Le mariage d'Antonio. Divertissement en un acte et en prose
- Lucile Grétry’s opera Le mariage d’Antonio premiered in Paris when she was a mere fourteen years old. As the second daughter of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, she was afforded lessons at a young age in counterpoint and declamation. Her father supplied the orchestral parts for her comédie mêlée d’ariettes after Lucile had composed the vocal, bass, and harp parts. Although Le mariage d’Antonio was a modest success, Lucile’s second endeavor, a divertissement mêlée d’ariettes entitled Toinette et Louis (1787), did not receive the same positive attention. The young composer died from tuberculosis before she could establish herself further at the Comédie-Italienne.
- Barbe bleue : comédie en prose et en trois actes
- Although the story of Bluebeard was familiar to French readers from Charles Perrault’s 1698 collection of children’s tales, transferring it to the operatic stage was problematic due in large part to the gruesome nature of the plot. Other violent works had appeared in Paris, but in this instance, the drama was to be performed at the Comédie-Italienne, which typically featured lighter plots than that of Raoul and Isaure. Nevertheless, the opera had a successful run, receiving over a hundred performances in the decade after its premiere. After its initial popularity, Raoul Bluebeard was staged less frequently, but it still made an impression on nineteenth-century composers, particularly Weber.
- Barbier de Seville [Il barbiere di Siviglia] Opéra comique en quatre actes
- Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia was based on the first play, Le barbier de Séville, ou La precaution inutile (1772), of Beaumarchais’s famous trilogy. The controversial commentary on aristocracy caused the play to be banned from the stage for three years. The ban was lifted in 1775 and the work premiered that same year; Beaumarchais finally saw the work performed in 1780 when he was employed by Catherine II in St. Petersburg. Although Rossini’s later opera (of 1816) is more familiar today, Paisiello’s rendition was extremely popular throughout Europe during its time. The work was first performed in St. Petersburg in September of 1782.
- Partitione della Nina, osia, La pazza per amore
- Score for Giovanni Paisiello's opera Partitione della Nina, osia, La pazza per amore. A handwritten page in French is pasted onto one of the front end pages; there is no title page or other such identifying information. Listed as 1.78 in the Robinson thematic catalog, it premiered on June 25, 1789 at the Belvedere, S. Leucio (Caserta).
- Tarare : opéra en cinq actes avec un prologue
- Antonio Salieri’s French debut Les Danaïdes (1784) led to additional commissions, Les Horaces (1786) and Tarare (1787). Although Les Horaces was not well-received, Tarare was popular both in Paris and Vienna. Beaumarchais supplied the libretto for Tarare, basing his plot on the third volume of the exotic English collection The Tales of the Genii, or The Delightful Lessons of Horam, the Son of Asmar (1764) by James Ridley, (pseudonym for Sir Charles Morell), who claimed the stories were translated from a Persian source.