Dardanus (Sacchini)
Encyclopedia
Dardanus is an opera by Antonio Sacchini
. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in four acts (later revised to a three act version). It was first performed at Versailles
on 18 September 1784, and subsequently at the Paris Opera
on 30 November of the same year. The French-language libretto was adapted by Nicolas-François Guillard
from that by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère, which had already been set to music by Jean-Philippe Rameau
in his earlier opera of the same name
.
.
The opera was not successful at its first appearance and had no more than six performances. Both Maillard, who played Iphise, and Larrivée, who played Teucer, were regarded as inadequate, the latter having to be replaced by Moreau after the second performance; the opera as a whole was deeply involved in the growing hostility towards Queen Marie Antoinette
's predilection for foreigners, Sacchini being her favourite: she herself had introduced the musician to the king in 1783, when he had been celebrated at court along with another Italian composer Piccinni
, when they had both been granted substantial pensions on account of their recently staged operas, Didon and Chimène.
Sacchini and Guillard later decided to revise Dardanus, reducing it to three acts and introducing new choreography by Gaetano Vestris. The new version was given at Fontainebleau on 20 October 1785 and was later brought to the stage of the Paris Opera on 17 January 1786, enjoying a total of 25 performances in 1786/1787. "It was [later] mounted annually between 1800 and 1808, and it was sung on 28 dates in these nine years", before being definitively dropped.
. Extracts from the opera appeared on the soundtrack CD, conducted by William Christie
with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
singing the title role.
Two arias for Iphise (Il me fuit...Rien peut émouvoir and Cesse, cruel Amour, de régner sur mon âme) were recorded by Véronique Gens
on the album Tragédiennes 2, accompanied by the orchestra Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset
(Virgin Classics, 2009).
Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini was an Italian opera composer.Sacchini was born in Florence, but was raised in Naples, where he received his musical education at the San Onofrio conservatory. He wrote his first operas in Naples, thereafter moving to Venice, then London and eventually Paris, where...
. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in four acts (later revised to a three act version). It was first performed at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
on 18 September 1784, and subsequently at the Paris Opera
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
on 30 November of the same year. The French-language libretto was adapted by Nicolas-François Guillard
Nicolas-François Guillard
Nicolas-François Guillard was a French librettist. He was born in Chartres and died in Paris, the recipient of a government pension in recognition of his work writing librettos. He was also on Comité de Lecture of the Paris Opéra...
from that by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère, which had already been set to music by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
in his earlier opera of the same name
Dardanus (opera)
Dardanus is an opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The French libretto was by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère.-Performance history:It was first performed at the Académie de musique in Paris on November 19, 1739...
.
History
Guillard's adaptation blends both 1739 and 1744 versions of Rameau's opera, but is based principally upon the second one. Although "the title-page of the printed score reads only 'paroles de M. Guillard', [in fact] most of the text is by La Bruère". Guillard's interventions mainly consisted in "[omitting] the Prologue, [altering] the order of events in Act 3, and skilfully [compressing] Acts 4 and 5". The librettist "justified his redoing the subject ... [by explaining] that his aim was to tighten the plot and create better motivation for the characters". The dancing divertissement was done by Pierre GardelPierre Gardel
Pierre-Gabriel Gardel was a French ballet dancer and ballet master. He was the brother of Maximilien Gardel....
.
The opera was not successful at its first appearance and had no more than six performances. Both Maillard, who played Iphise, and Larrivée, who played Teucer, were regarded as inadequate, the latter having to be replaced by Moreau after the second performance; the opera as a whole was deeply involved in the growing hostility towards Queen Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
's predilection for foreigners, Sacchini being her favourite: she herself had introduced the musician to the king in 1783, when he had been celebrated at court along with another Italian composer Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure, even to music lovers today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of his day...
, when they had both been granted substantial pensions on account of their recently staged operas, Didon and Chimène.
Sacchini and Guillard later decided to revise Dardanus, reducing it to three acts and introducing new choreography by Gaetano Vestris. The new version was given at Fontainebleau on 20 October 1785 and was later brought to the stage of the Paris Opera on 17 January 1786, enjoying a total of 25 performances in 1786/1787. "It was [later] mounted annually between 1800 and 1808, and it was sung on 28 dates in these nine years", before being definitively dropped.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 18 September 1784 before the French sovereigns, Louis XVI Louis XVI of France Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793.... and Marie Antoinette Maria Antonia of Austria Maria Antonia of Austria was the eldest daughter and only surviving child of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and his wife Margaret Theresa of Spain... (Conductor: ) |
|---|---|---|
| Iphise | soprano | Marie Thérèse Maillard |
| Dardanus | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
Étienne Lainez |
| Arcas | haute-contre Haute-contre The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:... |
Dufrenaye (also spelled Dufresnay) |
| Anténor | taille | François Lays |
| Teucer | bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende... |
Henri Larrivée |
| Isménor | bass-baritone | Augustin-Athanase Chéron |
| Un officier du palais | bass-baritone | Jean-Pierre Moreau |
| Deux coryphées | sopranos | Anne-Marie-Jeanne Gavaudan, ainée/Adealaïde Gavaudan, cadette |
| Deux confidentes | sopranos | Girardin/Aurore (chorus-singers) |
| Warriors, magicians, sylph Sylph Sylph is a mythological creature in the Western tradition. The term originates in Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air... s, spirits: choir |
||
ballerinas: Marie-Madeleine Guimard, Victoire Saulnier; male dancers: Pierre Gardel Pierre Gardel Pierre-Gabriel Gardel was a French ballet dancer and ballet master. He was the brother of Maximilien Gardel.... , Auguste Vestris Auguste Vestris Marie-Jean-Augustin Vestris, known as Auguste Vestris was a French dancer.Born in Paris as the illegitimate son of Gaëtan Vestris and of Marie Allard, he was dubbed "le dieu de la danse", , a popular title bestowed on the leading male dancer of each generation... |
||
Recordings
Music from Dardanus was used in the film Jefferson in ParisJefferson in Paris
Jefferson in Paris is a 1995 Franco-American historical drama film directed by James Ivory . The screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a semi-fictional account of Thomas Jefferson's tenure as the Ambassador of the United States to France prior to his Presidency, and his alleged relationships with...
. Extracts from the opera appeared on the soundtrack CD, conducted by William Christie
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....
with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is a French tenor, mostly as an opera singer. He was born on August 30, 1958, at Blanzy in the Burgundy region. He is best known for singing French Baroque music, especially the parts called in French haute-contre, written for a very high tenor voice with no falsetto...
singing the title role.
Two arias for Iphise (Il me fuit...Rien peut émouvoir and Cesse, cruel Amour, de régner sur mon âme) were recorded by Véronique Gens
Véronique Gens
Véronique Gens is a French soprano. She has spent much of her career recording and performing Baroque music....
on the album Tragédiennes 2, accompanied by the orchestra Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset
Christophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:...
(Virgin Classics, 2009).
Sources
Adolphe Jullien, La Cour et l'Opéra sous Louis XVI. Marie-Antoinette et Sacchini Salieri Favart et Gluck. D'après des documents inédits conservés aux Archives de l'État et à l'Opéra, Paris, Librairie Académique (Didier),1878 (accessible for free online in OpenLibrary.org), accessed 3 February 2011- Julian Rushton, Dardanus (ii), in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Grove (Oxford University Press), New York, 1997, I, p. 1079, ISBN 978-0-19-522186-2 Théodore de Lajarte, Bibliothèque Musicale du Théatre de l'Opéra. Catalogue Historique, Chronologique, Anecdotique, Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, 1878, Tome I (accessible for free on-line in scribd.com – accessed 3 February 2011, ad nomen, pp. 345-46)
- Spire Pitou, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815 (article: Dardanus, pp. 142-43), Greenwood Press, Westport/London, 1985 (ISBN 0-313-24394-8)
- ItalianOpera.org, accessed 3 February 2011
- Amadeus Almanac, accessed 8 September 2009