Les Horaces
| Les Horaces | |
|---|---|
| Tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri | |
 Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David, exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1785 (the year prior to the premiere of the opera in that city), depicts the titular Horatii. | |
| Librettist | Nicolas-François Guillard |
| Language | French |
| Based on | Corneille's Horace |
| Premiere | |
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
[edit]According to different sources, Les Horaces was first performed either at Fontainebleau on 2 November 1786,[2] or at Versailles on 2 December 1786.[3] 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 ...".[4] Whatever the case, it was not well received.[5] The failure of the opera to some extent has been blamed on the lackluster performances of the original performers.[6]
Roles
[edit]| Cast | Voice type | Premiere, 2 December 1786[1] (Conductor: - ) |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Adélaïde 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
[edit]- ^ a b According to the original libretto.
- ^ 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 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
[edit]- 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
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