La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici | |
---|---|
Grand opera by Daniel Auber | |
Librettist | |
Language | French |
Premiere | 29 February 1828 Salle Le Peletier, Paris |
La muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici, or The Dumb Girl of Portici), also called Masaniello (Italian pronunciation: [mazaˈnjɛllo]) in some versions,[1] is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe.
The work has an important place in music history as the earliest French grand opera. It is also known for its alleged role in the Belgian Revolution of 1830.
Background
The opera was first given at the
La muette was innovative in several ways. First, it marked the introduction into opera of
Richard Wagner remarked, in his 1871 Reminiscences of Auber, that the opera "whose very representation had brought [revolutions] about, was recognised as an obvious precursor of the July Revolution, and seldom has an artistic product stood in closer connection with a world-event."[6] La muette was revived in Paris immediately after the French July Revolution of 1830.
Belgian revolution
The opera was chosen for a performance at the
The king's festival announcement was met with open plans for revolt. Posters were put up around Brussels that advertised, "Monday, the 23rd, fireworks; Tuesday, the 24th, illuminations; Wednesday, the 25th, revolution."[8] However, the king's only concession to public safety was to cancel the fireworks and procession on the final night, which left Auber's opera as the last public event in the king's honor. Though the subject of the opera is revolution, its role in the riots may have been more a marriage of convenience because the rebels had pre-ordained the final day of the festival as the start of the Belgian Revolution.[9]
Prior to the performance of Auber's opera, the Courrier des Pays-Bas newspaper issued a coded call for attendees to leave prior to the fifth act.[10] There are some disagreements about when in the opera the exodus actually began, but the most commonly cited moment is the second act duet "Amour sacré de la patrie".[11] One contemporary account describes what happened in the theater during the duet:
When Lafeuillade and Cassel began singing the celebrated duet. "Amour sacre de la patrie" enthusiasm exploded irresistibly and [the singers] found it necessary to start afresh in the midst of the cheering. Finally, when Masaniello (Lafeuillade) launched into his entreaty, the invocation Aux armes!, the public could no longer be restrained. They acclaimed aria and actor, they booed the fifth act in order to stop the performance, and the delirious crowd [hurled itself] out of the hall—into history. Welcomed by the other crowd which waited outside, it joined in the demonstrations which loosed the revolution of 1830.[12]
Roles
Role[13] | Voice type[2] | Premiere cast,[14] 29 February 1828 (Conductor: Henri Valentino)[3] |
---|---|---|
Masaniello, a Neapolitan fisherman | tenor | Adolphe Nourrit |
Alphonse, son of the Count of Arcos, Viceroy of Naples | tenor | Alexis Dupont |
Elvire, fiancée of Alphonse | soprano | Laure Cinti-Damoreau |
Fenella, sister of Masaniello | dancer | Lise Noblet |
Pietro, friend of Masaniello | bass
|
Henri-Bernard Dabadie |
Borella, friend of Masaniello | bass | Alexandre Prévost[15] |
Moreno, friend of Masaniello | bass | Charles-Louis Pouilley[16] |
Lorenzo, confidant of Alphonse | tenor | Jean-Étienne-Auguste Massol |
Selva, officer of the Viceroy | bass | Ferdinand Prévôt |
Lady-in-waiting to Elvire | soprano | Anne Lorotte[17] |
Synopsis
The opera is loosely based on the
Act 1
The square before a chapel
We witness the wedding of Alfonso, son of the
Act 2
On the beach
The fishermen, who have been brooding in silence over the tyranny of their foes, begin to assemble. Pietro, Masaniello's friend, has sought for Fenella in vain, but at length she appears of her own accord and confesses her wrongs. Masaniello is infuriated and swears to have revenge, but Fenella, who still loves Alfonso, does not mention his name. Then Masaniello calls the fishermen to arms and they swear perdition to the enemy of their country.
Act 3
The Naples marketplace
People go to and fro, selling and buying, all the while concealing their purpose under a show of merriment and carelessness. Selva, the officer of the viceroy's body-guard, from whom Fenella has escaped, discovers her and the attempt to re-arrest her is the sign for a general revolt, in which the people are victorious.
Act 4
Masaniello's house
Fenella comes to her brother's dwelling and describes the horrors, which are taking place in the town. The relation fills his noble soul with sorrow and disgust. When Fenella has retired to rest, Pietro enters with comrades and tries to excite Masaniello to further deeds, but he only wants liberty and shrinks from murder and cruelties.
They tell him that Alfonso has escaped and that they are resolved to overtake and kill him. Fenella, who hears all, decides to save her lover. At this moment Alfonso begs at her door for a hiding-place. He enters with Elvire, and Fenella, though at first disposed to avenge herself on her rival, pardons her for Alfonso's sake. Masaniello, reentering, assures the strangers of his protection and even when Pietro denounces Alfonso as the viceroy's son, he holds his promise sacred. Pietro with his fellow-conspirators leaves him full of rage and hatred.
Meanwhile, the magistrate of the city presents Masaniello with the royal crown and he is proclaimed king of Naples.
Act 5
Before the Viceroy's palace
In a gathering of fishermen, Pietro confides to Moreno that he has administered poison to Masaniello, in order to punish him for his treason, and that the king of one day will soon die. While he speaks, Borella rushes in to tell of a fresh troop of soldiers, marching against the people with Alfonso at their head. Knowing that Masaniello alone can save them, the fishermen entreat him to take the command of them once more and Masaniello, though deadly ill and half bereft of his reason, complies with their request. The combat takes place, while an eruption of
Influence
La muette de Portici played a major role in establishing the genre of grand opera. Many of its elements – the five-act structure, the obligatory ballet sequence, the use of spectacular stage effects, the focus on romantic passions against a background of historical troubles – would become the standard features of the form for the rest of the 19th century. Grand opera would play a far more important role in the subsequent career of the librettist than that of the composer. Auber went on to write three more works in the genre: Le Dieu et la bayadère (1830), Gustave III (1833) and Le lac des fées (1839). But their fame would be eclipsed by the grand operas for which Scribe provided the libretti: Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836) and Halévy's La Juive (1835). Nevertheless, Auber's pioneering work caught the attention of the young Richard Wagner, who was eager to create a new form of music drama. He noted that in La muette, "arias and duets in the wonted sense were scarcely to be detected any more, and certainly, with the exception of a single prima-donna aria in the first act, did not strike one at all as such; in each instance it was the ensemble of the whole act that riveted attention and carried one away...".[20]
This opera is the inspiration for Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem "Fenella's Escape". published in The Keepsake, 1836.
The material has been used for several films: the American silent film The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916), the German silent film Die Stumme von Portici, the Italian film La muta di Portici (1952).
Recordings and performances
- La muette de Portici: OCLC 605508655. 2 Hours 29 Mins.
- La muette de Portici Oscar de la Torre (tenor) – Alphonse, Angelina Ruzzafante (soprano) – Elvire, Angus Wood (tenor) – Lorenzo, Ulf Paulsen (baritone) – Selva, Anne Weinkauf (mezzo) – Eine Holdame, Diego Torre (tenor) – Masaniello, Wiard Witholt (bass) – Pietro, Kostadin Arguirov (baritone) – Borella, Stephan Biener (bass) – Moreno; Opernchor des Anhaltischen Theaters, Anhaltische Philharmonie /Anthony Hermus; recorded 24–26 May 2011, Großes Haus of the Anhaltisches Theater, Dessau, Germany CPO 777 694-2 [65:47 + 69:32]
References
Notes
- ^ Tamvaco 2000, p. 1273. For example, Covent Garden performed it in English as Masaniello; or, The Dumb Girl of Portici on 4 May 1829 (Loewenberg 1978, column 712) and in Italian as Masaniello on 10 March 1849 (Tamvaco 2000, p. 957). It was given the title Mazaniello on certain repetitions at the Paris Opéra (Lajarte 1878, p. 129).
- ^ a b Schneider 1992.
- ^ a b Pougin 1880, pp. 597–598; Chouquet 1889, p. 214; Tamvaco 2000, pp. 87, 619; Cooper & Ellis 2001. Other sources credit François Habeneck as the conductor: Parouty; Wolff 1962, p. 152; Casaglia
- ^ Hibberd 2003, p. 154.
- ^ Hibberd 2003, p. 150.
- ^ Wagner 1966, p. 53.
- ^ Slatin 1979, p. 47.
- ^ Mallinson 1970, p. 54.
- ^ Slatin 1979, p. 60.
- ^ Slatin 1979, p. 50.
- ^ Slatin 1979, pp. 53–54.
- ^ Reniue, 744.
- ^ Scribe 1875, p. 26.
- ^ Auber 1828 ("Personnages").
- ^ Kutsch & Riemens 2002, p. 3763; Tamvaco 2000, p. 87. Tamvaco gives the full name of this singer as Antoine-Nicolas-Thérèse Prévost in the index (p. 1287).
- ^ Tamvaco 2000, p. 87, lists Pouilley in the bass role of Moreno. In his index on p. 1286, Tamvaco gives this singer's full name as Charles-Louis Pouilley but classifies him as a tenor. Gourret 1982, p. 60, confirms that the singer Pouilley was a bass, and also mentions that he joined the company in 1809. Tomvaco also mentions that the company employed a soprano, Mme Pouilley, who was his wife. Casaglia in the Amadeus Almanac lists this singer as Beltrame Pouilley, possibly an error.
- ^ Tamvaco 2000, pp. 87, 1270.
- ^ Daniel-François-Esprit Auber: La Muette de Portici, Edited and Introduced by Robert Ignatius Letellier, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2011).
- ^ Charles Annesley (1902) The Standard Operaglass, Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., London
- ^ Parker, pp. 143–145
Sources
- Auber, Daniel (1828). La muette de Portici, full score. Paris: E. Troupenas. Gallica.
- Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "La muette de Portici, 29 February 1828". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
- Chouquet, Gustave (1889). "Valentino, Henri Justin Armand Joseph". A Dictionary of Music and Musicians(4 volumes). Vol. 4. London: Macmillan.
- Cooper, Jeffrey; Ellis, Katharine (2001). "Valentino, Henri Justin Armand Joseph". In OCLC 419285866.
- Gourret, Jean (1982). Dictionnaire des chanteurs de l'Opéra de Paris. Paris: Albatros. OCLC 10018314.
- Hibberd, Sarah (2003). "La Muette and her context". In David Charlton (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera. )
- ISBN 9783598115981.
- Lajarte, Théodore de (1878). Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'Opéra. Vol. 2 [1793–1876]. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles..
- Loewenberg, Alfred (1978). Annals of Opera 1597–1940 (third, revised ed.). Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 9780874718515.
- Mallinson, Vernon (1970). Belgium. Praeger.
- Parouty, Michel. Fulton recording (Media notes).
- Pougin, Arthur (1880). "Valentino (Henri-Justin-Joseph)". Biographie universelle des musiciens et Bibliographie générale de la musique par F.-J. Fétis (Supplément et complément). Vol. 2. Paris: Firmin-Didot.
- Schneider, Herbert (1992). "Muette de Portici, La". In ISBN 0-333-73432-7.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Scribe, Eugène (1875). Oeuvres complètes: Operas, Ballets. Paris: E. Dentu. Copy at HathiTrust; copy at Google Books.
- Slatin, Sonia (1979). "Opera and Revolution: La Muette de Portici and the Belgian Revolution of 1830 Revisited". Journal of Musicological Research. 3 (3): 45–62. .
- Tamvaco, Jean-Louis (2000). Les Cancans de l'Opéra. Chroniques de l'Académie Royale de Musique et du théâtre, à Paris sous les deux restorations (2 volumes) (in French). Paris: CNRS Editions. ISBN 978-2-271-05685-6.
- Wagner, Richard (1966). Prose Works. Vol. 5. Translated by W. Ashton Ellis. New York.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Wolff, Stéphane (1962; reprint 1983). L'Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962). Paris: Deposé au journal L'Entr'acte ISBN 9782050002142.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-14-029312-4.
- Mondelli, Peter (2013). "The Sociability of History in French Grand Opera: A Historical Materialist Perspective", in 19th Century Music vol. 37, no. 1.
- Parker, Roger, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Oxford University Press, 1994
- Renieu, Lionel, L'Histoire des Théâtres de Bruxelles: depuis leur origine jusqu'à ce jour, Duchartre & Van Buggenhoudt, 1928.
- ISBN 0-19-869164-5
External links
- La muette de Portici: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
- The Standard Opera Glass Synopsis
- La muette de Portici, French libretto (Brussels, 1833) at Google Books
- Masaniello, ovvero, La muta di Portici, Italian libretto (Palermo, 1860) at Google Books
- Masaniello, English and Italian libretto (Boston, 1865) at Google Books
- The Escape of Fenella., a painting by Alfred Edward Chalon of a scene from the opera, engraved by J. C. Edwards for The Keepsake annual, 1836, combined with a poetical illustration (Fenella’s Escape) by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.