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Thesée; tragedie mise en musique
Date: 1711
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Description: Thesée, which premiered at the court theater at St. Germain-en-laye on January 11, 1675, was Jean-Baptiste Lully's third tragédie lyrique created in collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault. As in most of his libretti for Lully, Quinault combines a plot based on a classical source (an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses) with references to contemporary events. The Prologue alludes to Louis XIV's personal leadership in the military engagements in the Alsace (along the French/German border). The juxtaposition of Venus' entreaties for pleasure with Mars' call to arms reflects a period of unease during which the French armies were in retreat from the armies of the Elector of Brandenburg. This resulted in the unique joining of songs of love with songs of war and victory.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc71/
Thetis et Pelée; tragédie en musique
Date: 1716
Creator: Collasse, Pascal, 1649-1709
Description: Pascal Collasse was one of the few opera composers able to secure successful performances in the years following Lully’s death. Collasse then went on to supply the music for the entire opera, Thétis et Pélée, which was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 11 January 1689. Thétis remained popular throughout Collasse’s lifetime, in spite of its rather weak plot. Owing to its success is primarily the music, including a significant storm scene in Act II. This departure from the Lullian tradition is perhaps Collasse’s most significant contribution to the tradition of French opera.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4/
Isis; tragedie mise en musique
Date: 1719
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Description: Isis, which premiered January 5, 1677, at St. Germain-en-Laye, was the fifth of Jean-Baptiste Lully's tragédies lyriques written with librettist Philippe Quinault. The plot is loosely adapted from one of the episodes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In many of its essentials, the plot of Isis resembles that of Lully's previous opera, Atys. In Isis, the nymph Io, daughter of the river Inachus, is promised in marriage to Hierax, just as the nymph Sangaride, daughter of the river Sangar, was promised to Celoenus. Like Sangaride, Io is pursued by another love and yields to this love in spite of her feelings of guilt. Like Sangaride, Io has a goddess as a rival and is vulnerable to her jealousy. Lully's contemporaries interpreted this story as representing the volatile situation between two of the King's mistresses. The subsequent scandale of the premiere ended the collaboration between Lully and Quinault for a time, and led to the dismissal of a number of members of Lully's artistic circle.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc59/
Atys : tragedie mise en musique
Date: 1720
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Description: Atys, which premiered on 10 January 1676, is the first of the tragédies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault to have a tragic ending. As the Prologue indicates, the tragedie itself is a divertissement to ease the king's mind of his impending duties. Joyce Newman, in Jean-Baptiste de Lully and his Tragédie Lyriques, summarizes the message of the story in this way: "In [Atys], Quinault shows how actions which are not in accord with the noble ideal will bring defeat and punishment. Not only is love in opposition to glory in this opera, but also it is shown that if love is place more highly than honor, it will bring unhappiness even to one of the immortals."
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc57/
Persée : tragedie
Date: 1722
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Description: King Louis XIV's involvement in campaigns against the Dutch/Swedish alliance in early 1682 prevented him from attending the premiere of Persée in April of that year. As was customary in the operas of composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and librettist Philippe Quinault, the prologue included references to current battlefield exploits and portrayed the king as a paragon of virtue. The prologues of previous Lully operas emphasized glory and prowess over virtue; the change in emphasis in Persée may have resulted from the increased influence of Madame de Maintenon (the king's new mistress) in the court and her pension for decorum.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc60/
Rutzvanscad, il giovine
Date: 1724
Creator: Valaresso, Zaccaria, 1686-1769.
Description: This is a copy of Cattuffio Panchianio's "Rutzvanscad, il Giovine," a parody of Greek tragedy. The library's copy is bound with the libretto of Giovanni Battista Casti's "Prima la musica e poi le parole." Clarification notes relating to terms and characters of the tragedy appear on the back of p.79 together with a list of printing errors.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc25965/
Les amours des dieux : ballet heroique
Date: 1727
Creator: Mouret, Jean Joseph, 1682-1738
Description: None
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc25/
Devil to pay: or, The wives metamorphos'd
Date: 1732
Creator: Coffey, Charles, d. 1745
Description: English libretto to Charles Coffey's ballad opera The devil to pay or, The wives metamorphos'd. The Devil to Pay is an adaptation of Thomas Jevon’s play The Devil of a Wife (1686). Nearly fifty years later, the ballad opera appeared at Drury Lane with Charles Coffey and John Mottley each responsible for half of the three acts. However, a much shorter and more well-received one-act version, edited by Theophilus Cibber, is represented in the printed libretto. Today Coffey is generally the only name widely attached to The Devil to Pay. The opera’s popularity is attested by the frequent performances and a translation into German, which contributed to the development of the Singspiel.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2/
Achilles. An opera.
Date: 1733
Creator: Gay, John, 1685-1732
Description: John Gay is credited with inventing the ballad opera, a genre that blends spoken plays and previously composed songs to new texts. Although The Beggar’s Opera (1728) was his most successful endeavor, he continued to compose English musical dramas. Achilles was finally performed in 1733, one year after Gay died. In this story, Achilles appears as a girl named Pyrrha, unknown to most of the inhabitants of the island of Scyros, in order to circumvent a prediction that he will die in battle. Deidamia (the king’s daughter) knows the secret, however, because she is carrying the disguised man’s child. After Achilles’s identity is revealed, he and Deidamia are able to wed. Then, in a fateful twist of irony, Achilles plans to join the Greeks in the Trojan War.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc11/
Beggar's opera
Date: 1735
Creator: Pepusch, John Christopher, 1667-1752.
Description: This is a 1735 fourth ed. of the three-act ballad opera "The beggar's opera" by John Christopher Pepusch and John Gay. It includes the score for the overture (for violins (2), viola, and bass ensemble) and the melodies of each song. The inscription, "Nos haec novimus esse nihil" (transl. as, We know these to be nothing) that appears on the t.p. is an epigram by Marcus Valerius Martialis from his Books of Epigrams. On the back of the t.p. appears the advertisement of these works printed by John Watts: Fifty one new fables in verse; The tunes to the songs in the Beggar's Opera, transposed for the flute; and Gay's opera "Achilles." A table of songs shows the first lines of text for each act. The item includes a list of characters.
Contributing Partner: UNT Music Library
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc25946/