Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2010-10-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1443825972
GET BOOK

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.

Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 780
Release: 2010-04-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1443821683
GET BOOK

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.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2012-04-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1443839221
GET BOOK

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

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Ignatius Robert Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781443829168
GET BOOK

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782â "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 (1791â "1861), with whom he developed a working partnership, one of the most successful in musical history, that lasted until Scribeâ (TM)s death. After Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), Auberâ (TM)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 LÃ(c)gion dâ (TM)Honneur. Auberâ (TM)s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its heroâ (TM)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! Auberâ (TM)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 Auberâ (TM)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. ActÃ(c)on, an opÃ(c)ra-comique in one act with libretto by Eugène Scribe, was first performed at the OpÃ(c)ra-Comique (Salle de la place de la Bourse) on 23 January 1836. The story is set in eighteenth-century Sicily. Prince Aldobrandi has jealously shut up his wife Lucrezia and his sister Adèle in a palace where only women are permitted. Count LÃ(c)oni, wishing to see Adèle, disguises himself as a blind street-singer to gain the attention of the ladies. Lucrezia is painting a picture of Diana and her nymphs being surprised by Actaeon, and persuades her husband to allow the blind man to pose as a model. LÃ(c)oniâ (TM)s deception is revealed when Adèle catches him reading a letter sent to her by the Cherubino-like page StÃ(c)fano, who jealously betrays the Count to Aldobrandi. A poignarding is narrowly averted when LÃ(c)oni admits that he came to see Adèle and not Lucrezia; the chastened Prince then graciously consents to pose as Actaeon. The score of this lever de rideau, originally destined for the OpÃ(c)ra, was written for the agile voice of Laure Cinti-Damoreau. It is overshadowed by the other more popular creations of the composer, but nonetheless contains several remarkable pieces. The overture, with its perky introduction broken by slower cello and oboe sequences is dominated by Mediterranean rhythms: a vigorous bolero encloses a beautiful hushed central movement, the sicilienne, which is dreamily passed from horns to clarinets to oboes. Of real elegance are: the aria â oeIl est des Ã(c)poux complaisantsâ ; the romance â oeJeunes beautÃ(c)s, charmantes desmoisellesâ and the syllabic quartet â oeLe destin comble mes voeuxâ . Mme Damoreau excited general enthusiasm when she sang the Sicilienne (â oeNina, jolie et sageâ ), an air à vocalise which is a masterpiece of grace and finesse in this small work. The opera is unique among the works of Scribe and Auber for its brevity, for its use of a classical framework (the myth of Diana and Actaeon) to provide an updated contemporary fable that celebrates art and love. All these elements, and the gift of the vocally challenging part for Cinti-Damoreau, come together in the brilliant finale. The original cast was: Jean-Francois Inchindi [Hinnekindt] (Aldobrandi); Laure Cinti-Damoreau (Lucrezia); Louis-BenoÃ(R)t-Alphonse RÃ(c)vial (LÃ(c)oni); Mlle Camoin (Adèle); and Mme FÃ(c)licitÃ(c) Pradher (StÃ(c)fano). The work was in the repertoire between 1836 and 1852, with a total of 92 performances. It was translated into German, and produced in Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, London and Philadelphia.

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 732
Release: 2019-01-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1527527581
GET BOOK

Giacomo Meyerbeer was once one of the most famous of all opera composers, enjoying into the twentieth century the same universal admiration and performance as a composer like Puccini does today. Through a series of adverse factors, his reputation was seriously damaged with the resurgence of nationalism and the growing ant-Semitism in France and Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, the propagation of a Wagnerian operatic aesthetic, the decline of the bel canto vocal tradition, and the disfavour manifested towards the heroism of French grand opera. All these factors, and especially the ban on his music in Nazi Germany, meant that Meyerbeer’s reputation was seriously overshadowed in the years after the Second World War. During the 1960s and 1970s, a tentative interest began to manifest itself, and with the advent of the new millennium, a growing rediscovery of his operas has been apparent. Not least in this process has been the recovery of all the composer’s private papers and their scholarly editing. His life and work have been the subject of a growing number of informed studies which have enabled radical reassessment. This volume takes a fresh look at this process of rediscovery by considering the composer in terms of the primary sources (diaries and letters) now available for forming a more complete and detailed biography unclouded by prejudicial or uninformed opinions. The extraordinary nature of Meyerbeer’s Jewish background and the role of this family in Prussian emancipation are also considered. Most importantly, however, his life and works are presented in a critical chronology that is fundamentally based on his own private papers, with testimony (both positive and negative) from many contemporary sources. A detailed iconography is integral to this process, and helps to bring Meyerbeer's story and music more vividly to life.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2012-04-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 144383923X
GET BOOK

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).

The Ballets of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

The Ballets of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2011-05-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1443830224
GET BOOK

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (Caen 29 January 1782- Paris 12/13 May 1871) is primarily remembered as one of the great masters of opéra-comique, but also played a very important role in the development of Romantic ballet through the long danced interludes and divertissements in his grand operas La Muette de Portici, Le Dieu et la Bayadère, Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque, Le Lac des fées, L’Enfant prodigue, Zerline, and the opéra-ballet version of Le Cheval de bronze. Auber also adapted music of various of his operas to create the score of the full-length ballet Marco Spada; it is quite different from his own opera on the subject. Additionally, several choreographers have used Auber’s music for their ballets, among them Frederick Ashton (Les Rendezvous, 1937), Victor Gsovsky (Grand Pas Classique, 1949) and Lew Christensen (Divertissement d’Auber, 1959). La Muette de Portici (1828), choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer, is set against the Neapolitan uprising of 1647, and was performed 500 times in Paris alone between 1828 and 1880. The opera provides one of the few serious subjects the composer tackled, and one which critics found to have a persuasive dramatic content. An unusual aspect of the work is that the main character, a mute girl, is performed by a mime or a ballerina. The role of ballet in La Muette is important in setting the local scene, using dance episodes, whether courtly, and therefore Spanish—as in the guarucha and bolero in act 1, or popular, and therefore Neapolitan—as in the act 3 tarantella. Dance is also innate to the dramatic situation in the extended mime sequences for the mute heroine each with its own specially crafted music and character. 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 Cicéri and Daguerre). Le Dieu et la Bayadère (1830), set in India, was choreographed by Filippo Taglioni. Eugène Scribe, not only one of the most influential of opera librettists, but also a leading figure in the history of ballet, wrote the scenario for the danced part, which was fairly long and of artistic merit. In the ballet scenes of the opera, the choreographer, one of the most important exponents of dance in the Romantic period, was already experimenting with the ideas and style that were to characterize the creations of his prime, and of the Romantic ballet as a whole: an exotic fairy tale subject (often pseudo-Medieval or pastoral), and strange love affairs with supernatural beings, in the theatrical, musical and literary taste of the period. Above all, the Romantic ballet focused on the idealization of the ballerina, floating on the tips of her toes, a figure of ethereal lyricism. All the ballets by Filippo Taglioni were designed to display his daughter Marie’s luminous artistic personality. The heavily mime-oriented role of the bayadère Zoloé was one of Marie Taglioni’s createst triumphs. Gustave III (1833), based on the assassination of King Gustavus of Sweden in 1792, and also choreographed by Filippo Taglioni, was heavily influenced by the impact of the production of Robert le Diable, which saw a particular emphasis placed on sets and stage effects. The grand and historical nature of this opera is powerfully underscored by the two intercalated ballets. The first divertissement comes as early as act 1, and is in the nature of a grand historical pageant based on the life of Gustavus Vasa (1523-60), founder of the present Swedish state, before he gained the crown. There are two dances illustrating the prince’s leadership of the populace of Dalecarlia on the campaign to gain freedom from Denmark. The second divertissement is the legendary masked ball of the title at which the king was assassinated in 1792. The spectacle provided by the Opéra was sensational: the stage was illumined by 1600 candles in crystal chandeliers, and 300 dancers took part, all dressed in different costumes, and with 100 dancing the final galop. There are six numbers: three airs de danse (Allemande, Pas de folies, Menuet), two marches, and the famous final galop. Much time in Le Lac des fées, a tale of love between a human and a supernatural being, choreographed by Jean Coralli, 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. There is a detailed description of the procession through the streets of Cologne, organized by the Medieval guilds, each preceded by its own standard, with choruses. It unfolds in several movements:—the chorus of students “Vive la jeunesse”, the Fête des Rois with its Chant de Noël, the whole culminating in a big ballet sequence of four dances: 1) Valse des Étudiants, 2) Pas de Bacchus et Erigone, 3) Styrienne, and 4) Bacchanale. Scribe’s stage directions provide vivid details and combine historically informed spectacle, pantomime and dance into a single artistic conception. L’Enfant prodigue (1850), based on the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son, was choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon. A special aspect of the opera is the dance sequence in act 2—No.10 Scène, containing 5 Airs de ballet, as part of the celebrations of the sacred bull Apis. There are some further danced passages in the opening part of act 3, where the formal operatic elements of prayer, drinking song, bacchanal, and lullaby are integrated with singing and dancing into an artistic whole, once again with reference to the venerable French tradition of the opéra-ballet. Scribe’s scenarios show that the formal dances are either enmeshed in the unfolding of the drama (act 2), or use dance an integral element in the thematic ramifications of the plotline (in act 3). Zerline, ou La Corbeille d’oranges (1851) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier. Act 3 is dominated by the great princely festivities featuring eight dance movements (No. 15 Airs de Ballet and No. 16 Choeur (Valse), a pallid reminiscence of the great Masked Ball of Gustave in 1832. Auber reused much of the ballet music from act 3 of Le Lac des fées in this elaborate semi-allegorical masque that employs a variety of forms and fuses various types of danced entertainment, from classical pas de deux and formal ball through national dance, vaudeville and children’s routines to carnival. Marco Spada, ou La Fille du bandit (1857) was choreographed by Joseph Mazilier. Scribe’s libretto for the opéra-comique Marco Spada which had been produced at the Opéra-Comique in December 1852 with Auber’s music, met the fundamental requirement of having two important female characters, and provided Scribe with the right opportunity to adapt his story to a scenario for dancing. So the opéra-comique was transformed into a ballet—Auber’s only full length one. The music was not an adaptation of the opera, but rather a composite score made up of the most striking numbers from several of Auber’s works: Le Concert à la cour, Fiorella, La Fiancée, Fra Diavolo, Le Lac des fées, L’Ambassadrice, Les Diamants de la couronne, La Barcarolle, Zerline and L’Enfant prodigue. The original scenario required elaborate décor and stage machinery, which was a factor in this later revival of the work at the Académie de musique on 21 September1857. In 1857 Auber reworked the score of the opéra-comique Le Cheval de bronze as an opéra-ballet in four acts, adding recitatives, and extra ballet and ensemble numbers. The choreography was by Lucien Petipa. The divertissements consisted of 1) a seven-movement Pas de quatre in act 1 2) a four-movement Danse in act 3 3) and five-movement Pas de deux in act 4. This version of the opera has never been published. The 20th century saw Auber’s music used for three significant ballet arrangements. Les Rendezvous is an abstract ballet created in 1933 with choreography by Frederick Ashton, the first major ballet created by Ashton for the Vic Wells company. It was first performed on Tuesday, December 5th, 1933, by the Vic Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Premiered in Paris in the year 1949, Grand Pas Classique by Russian choreographer and ballet master Victor Gsovsky (1902 74) is a homage to classical dance. Based on musical extracts from the three-act ballet Marco Spada (1857), published by the composer as an offshoot of his opera by the same name, this pas de deux is a masterpiece of exquisite virtuosity. Divertissement d'Auber is set to excerpts from Auber's four most famous and dazzling operatic overtures. It is quicksilver, joyous music that inspired Lew Christensen's most brilliant and effervescent choreographic style. The work showcases the technique of classical ballet at its peak, with the form and movement of the choreography running the gamut of the dancer's virtuoso vocabulary. Divertissement d'Auber is a staple of Christensen’s canon.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s Les Chaperons blancs

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s Les Chaperons blancs
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019-06-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1527535797
GET BOOK

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871), the most amiable French composer of the nineteenth 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. Les Chaperons blancs is one of Auber’s least known operas, falling between Le Cheval de bronze (1835) and Le Domino noir (1837), two of his most famous works. The première also took place only five weeks after that of Meyerbeer’s celebrated Les Huguenots (29 February 1836) had carried all before it. Like the latter, Auber’s opera is centred around a theme of political conspiracy, although obviously observed through the lighter lens of the comique style. The tradition of the rescue opera, popular since the French Revolution, also features in the storyline, as does the motif of apparent death through soporifics so memorably used by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet (c. 1594). The leading characters were created by two great stars of the Opéra-Comique, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Chollet and Geneviève-Aimeé-Zoé Prévost, both of whom had brought to life the leading roles in Auber’s most famous comic creation, Fra Diavolo (1830). This book presents an insight into the life and work of Auber by close examination of this little-known opera, with consideration of origins, casting, and plot, and analysis of dramaturgy, musical style, and reception history. This volume provides the vocal/piano score of Les Chaperons blancs, preceded by an introduction to the life and work of Auber, and a reading of the opera. There are examples from the score, prints from contemporary sources and other theatrical memorabilia, adding an important iconographical aspect to the general place and relevance of this work in nineteenth-century French operatic culture.

The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Author: Robert Ignatius Letellier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 467
Release: 2011-01-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1443827932
GET BOOK

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.