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Isis; tragedie mise en musique

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 C… more
Date: 1719
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
Partner: UNT Music Library

Isis : tragedie

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 C… more
Date: 1677
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Partner: UNT Music Library

Tom Jones; comedie lyrique en trois actes

Description: 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 re… more
Date: 1766
Creator: Philidor, F. D. (François Danican), 1726-1795; Poinsinet, Antoine Alexandre Henri, 1735-1769; Davesne, Bertin, 1714-1742 & Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754
Partner: UNT Music Library

Les Danaïdes, tragédie lirique en cinq actes

Description: 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.
Date: 1784
Creator: Salieri, Antonio, 1750-1825; Du Roullet, François Louis Gaud Lebland, marquis, 1716-1786 & Tschudi, Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Théodore, baron de, 1734-1784
Partner: UNT Music Library

Le triomphe de l'amour : ballet royal

Description: Le Triomphe de l'Amour, a ballet de cour created by composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and librettists Isaac de Benserade and Philippe Quinault, was danced for the first time at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on January 21, 1681. Several setbacks, including the illness of the dauphin and the reluctance of court ladies to attend the ballet, postponed its premiere for nearly three months. Benserade, one of the creators of the ballet de cour, was drawn out of retirement to create verses in celebration of the dau… more
Date: 1681
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687; Benserade, Isaac de, 1613-1691 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
Partner: UNT Music Library

Le triomphe de l'amour

Description: Le Triomphe de l'Amour, a ballet de cour created by composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and librettists Isaac de Benserade and Philippe Quinault, was danced for the first time at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on January 21, 1681. Several setbacks, including the illness of the dauphin and the reluctance of court ladies to attend the ballet, postponed its premiere for nearly three months. Benserade, one of the creators of the ballet de cour, was drawn out of retirement to create verses in celebration of the dau… more
Date: 1681~
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687
Partner: UNT Music Library

Tancrède: tragédie

Description: André Campra’s Tancrède, which premiered on 7 November 1702, is his best-known tragédie en musique, with a run of performances until 1764, and high praise by noteworthy music personalities such as Rameau. While the music critic La Cerf de la Viéville wrote positive comments about Tancrède, he was bothered by the opera’s use of low voices, which defied the tradition of employing castrati parts. Additionally, the role of Clorinda was written for a well-known contralto named Mademoiselle Maupin… more
Date: 1702
Creator: Campra, André, 1660-1744; Danchet, Antoine, 1671-1748. & Tasso, Torquato, 1544-1595
Partner: UNT Music Library

Le mariage d'Antonio. Divertissement en un acte et en prose

Description: 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 … more
Date: 1786
Creator: Grétry, Lucile
Partner: UNT Music Library

Barbier de Seville [Il barbiere di Siviglia] Opéra comique en quatre actes

Description: 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 tod… more
Date: 1789
Creator: Paisiello, Giovanni, 1740-1816; Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 1732-1799 & Framery, Nicolas Etienne, 1745-1810
Partner: UNT Music Library

Mélomanie : opera comique en un acte en vers mêlé d'ariettes mis en musique

Description: 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 rejecte… more
Date: 1781
Creator: Champein, Stanislas, 1753-1830 & Grenier
Partner: UNT Music Library

Orphée et Euridice; tragédie; opéra en trois actes

Description: 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. G… more
Date: 1783
Creator: Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von, 1714-1787 & Moline, M. (Pierre Louis), ca. 1740-1821
Partner: UNT Music Library

Épreuve villageoise : opéra bouffon en deux actes en vers

Description: 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 perf… more
Date: 1784
Creator: Grétry, André Ernest Modeste, 1741-1813 & Desforges, M. (Pierre-Jean-Baptiste), 1746-1806
Partner: UNT Music Library

Le Huron : comedie en deux actes, et en vers

Description: 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 … more
Date: 1768
Creator: Gretry, André Ernest Modeste, 1741-1813 & Marmontel, Jean François, 1723-1799
Partner: UNT Music Library

Panurge dans l'Isle des Lanternes : comédie lirique en trois actes

Description: 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… more
Date: 1785
Creator: Grétry, André Ernest Modeste, 1741-1813 & Morel de Chédeville, Etienne, 1747-1814
Partner: UNT Music Library

Richard Cœur de Lion : opéra comique en trois actes

Description: Richard Cœur-de-lion is probably Grétry’s most famous opéra-comique. However, it was banned during the French Revolution and subsequent rebellions in 1830 and 1848 due to its favorable depiction of royalty. Other than those exceptions, the work has remained popular due to its well-developed and compelling plot, its idealized representation of the Medieval community, as well as its musicodramatic structure in which a recurring romance melody is treated as a unifying plot point.
Date: 1838
Creator: Grétry, André Ernest Modeste, 1741-1813
Partner: UNT Music Library

Servante maîtresse : comédie en deux actes mêlée d'ariettes

Description: 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.
Date: 1755
Creator: Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 1710-1736 & Federico, Gennaro Antonio, 18th cent
Partner: UNT Music Library

Serva padrona : intermezzo

Description: 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.
Date: [1804,1805]
Creator: Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 1710-1736
Partner: UNT Music Library

Buona figliuola : opera comica

Description: Goldoni turned to Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) as the inspiration for his La buona figliuola. In 1750, he wrote the play Pamela nubile and then turned it into a libretto for Duni. Although Duni’s La buona figliuola (1756) was a failure, Piccinni’s setting in 1760 was a huge success. The hilarious comedy coupled with Piccinni’s sentimental treatment of Cecchina contributed to the popularity of the opera, which still receives performances to this day. Typical of… more
Date: 1767
Creator: Piccinni, Niccolò, 1728-1800; Goldoni, Carlo, 1707-1793 & Richardson, Samuel, 1689-1761
Partner: UNT Music Library

Platée : comédie-ballet

Description: 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 i… more
Date: 1749
Creator: Rameau, Jean Philippe, 1683-1764 & Le Valois d'Orville, Adrien-Joseph
Partner: UNT Music Library

Colonie : opéra comique en deux actes

Description: 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… more
Date: 1776
Creator: Sacchini, Antonio, 1730-1786 & Framery, Nicolas Etienne, 1745-1810
Partner: UNT Music Library

Renaud : tragedie lyrique en trois actes

Description: 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.
Date: 1783
Creator: Sacchini, Antonio, 1730-1786
Partner: UNT Music Library

Finta pazza, drama.

Description: Although Sacrati’s La finta pazza (1641) was immensely popular and influential, the opera has received little discussion in modern scholarship, due in large part to the absence of the music (even the number of extant copies of librettos is very small). Since Lorenzo Bianconi discovery of a score that was used for traveling productions, the opera has received increasing attention.
Date: 1644
Creator: Strozzi, Giulio, 1583-1652
Partner: UNT Music Library

Tarare : opéra en cinq actes avec un prologue

Description: 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 tran… more
Date: 1790
Creator: Salieri, Antonio, 1750-1825 & Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 1732-1799
Partner: UNT Music Library

Persée : tragedie

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 … more
Date: 1722
Creator: Lully, Jean Baptiste, 1632-1687 & Quinault, Philippe, 1635-1688
Partner: UNT Music Library
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