Les Horaces
Les Horaces | |
---|---|
Tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri | |
![]() Antonio Salieri, engraving by Carl Traugott Riedel, 1802 | |
Librettist | Nicolas-François Guillard |
Language | French |
Based on | Corneille's Horace |
Premiere | 2 November 1786 |
Les Horaces (The Horatii) is an operatic tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri. The text was by Nicolas-François Guillard after Pierre Corneille's Horace.
The opera was commissioned by the Paris Opera after the success of Salieri's Les Danaïdes with the company.
Performance history[]
According to different sources, Les Horaces was first performed either at Fontainebleau on 2 November 1786,[1] or at Versailles on 2 December 1786.[2] According to Spire Pitou, however, both dates seem to be errors and "the correct date of the world première of Salieri's Les Horaces is 7 December 1786 at the Royal Academy of Music ...".[3] Whatever the case, it was not well received.[4] The failure of the opera to some extent has been blamed on the lackluster performances of the original performers.[5]
Notes[]
- ^ according to one source
Roles[]
Cast | Voice type | Premiere, 2 December 1786[6] (Conductor: - ) |
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Old Horace | bass-baritone | Auguste-Athanase (Augustin) Chéron |
Young Horace | tenor/baritone | François Lays |
Curiace | tenor | Étienne Lainez |
Camille | soprano | Antoinette Cécile de Saint-Huberty |
A woman of Camille's retinue | soprano | Adelaïde Gavaudan "cadette"[7] |
The High Priest | bass-baritone | Martin-Joseph Adrien |
Valère | baritone | Claude-Armand Chardin (stage name, "Chardini") |
A Roman | bass-baritone | M. Moreau |
An Alban | bass-baritone | M. Châteaufort |
An oracle | bass-baritone | M. Moreau |
References[]
- ^ the libretto bears such a notation (Pitou, "Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 277)
- ^ as reported by Théodore Lajarte in his Bibliothèque musicale du théâtre de l'Opéra (online at Internet Archive), Paris, 1876, I, p. 353
- ^ Pitou, "Les Horaces" (Salieri), pp. 277-78
- ^ Classy Classical: Antonio Salieri: Truth or Fiction
- ^ Antonio Salieri Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine. "Yet -retorts Pitou- the best voices of the company had been cast in this failure..." ("Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 279
- ^ According to the original libretto.
- ^ According to Spire Pitou (articles: "Gavaudan aînée, Anne-Marie Jeanne", p. 240, and "Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 278), the role was performed by Adelaïde's elder sister, Anne-Marie Jeanne Gavaudan, aînée.
Sources[]
- Original libretto: Les Horaces, Tragédie-Lyrique, en trois actes, mêlée d'intermedes. Représentée devant Leurs Majestés à Fontainebleau, le 2 Novembre 1786, Paris, Ballard, 1786 (a copy online at Gallica - Bibliothèque Nationale de France)
- Pitou, Spire, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815, Greenwood Press, Westport/London, 1985 (ISBN 0-313-24394-8)
- Horaces, Les by John A Rice, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
- Tragédies en musique
- Operas by Antonio Salieri
- Operas
- 1786 operas
- Operas based on works by Pierre Corneille
- Libretti by Nicolas-François Guillard