Djamileh
Encyclopedia
Djamileh is an opéra comique
in one act by Georges Bizet
to a libretto
by Louis Gallet
, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset
.
, director of the Opéra-Comique suggested to him a piece written some years earlier by Louis Gallet based on Namouna. After some hesitation, Bizet composed the work during the late summer of 1871 but the premiere production was delayed due to trouble in finding suitable singers.
The original production formed part of a trio of new short works at the Opéra-Comique that spring: Paladilhe
's Le Passant in April, then Djamileh, and La princesse jaune
(also an orientalist work) by Saint-Saëns
in June. Bizet had wanted Galli-Marié
(the first Carmen) or Marguerite Priola to create the title role - both were singing in the Paladilhe piece, but was obliged to take instead the inadequate Prelly.
On 17 June, Bizet wrote to a friend that, despite the lack of success of his new piece, he at least felt that he had found his path as a composer.
, Paris
. Although du Locle had lavished great care on the costumes and sets, after ten performances in 1872 it was not revived in Paris until 27 October 1938. Outside France productions were mounted in Stockholm
(1889), Rome
(1890), and Dublin, Prague
, Manchester
and Berlin
(1892).
The opera has been neglected for most of its existence, despite the admiration it received from both Gustav Mahler
, who, after introducing it in Hamburg
(21 October 1892), conducted nineteen performances of it at the Vienna State Opera
between 1898 (first performance there 22 January 1898) and 1903, and Richard Strauss
, who viewed it as a source of inspiration for Ariadne auf Naxos
. Jussi Björling
sang Haroun in a 1933 revival of an earlier production at the Royal Swedish Opera
, Stockholm.
Productions were mounted in 2008 by DCA Theater in Chicago and, in 2010, by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, directed by Jonathan Eaton and starring Matt Morgan as Haroun, Daniel Teadt as Splendiano, and Christina Nassif in the title role.
At the end of day Haroun
reclines and smokes in his palace, with his servant Splendiano; an off-stage chorus sing. The slave-girl Djamileh passes through the room unseen by Haroun, gazing tenderly at him.
Splendiano is looking over his master’s accounts when Haroun asks Splendiano where Djamileh is – and is told that she is near at hand, still in love. He remarks also that she will be disappointed as her month as lover to the sultan is nearly finished and she will be replaced. Haroun denies that he is in love with her and demands that she be sent away and a new girl would be brought. Splendiano confides that he is taken with Djamileh. Haroun’s heart is a desert: he loves no woman, only love itself. This gives hope to Splendiano that he will have Djamileh.
Haroun asks for supper to be served. Djamileh enters, dejected, and tells him of a bad dream she had where she was drowning in the sea, looking for him to save her, but there was no one. Haroun, aware of some affection for her, reassures her, and supper is served.
Haroun offers Djamileh a necklace. His friends arrive to spend the night playing dice. Before Djamileh can leave she is seen by the men who express their admiration; Djamileh is left hurt and confused, while Splendiano feels sure he will succeed in his conquest. He explains to Djamileh that she must leave and regain her freedom - and offers his love. She proposes that he present her to Haroun, disguised as the next slave-girl, and promises that if she fails to win Haroun’s heart that way she will give herself to Splendiano. Alone, she expresses her anxiety about her destiny and the fragility of love.
To Haroun's irritation, Splendiano interrupts the gambling to say that the slave merchant has brought a new girl, who then dances an almah; Haroun remains indifferent and returns to the game. Splendiano asks the merchant to replace the dancer with Djamileh, while being certain that she will soon be his.
Veiled, Djamileh enters in the dancer’s costume and, shy and nervous, makes to leave. Haroun, whose interest is now aroused, sends Splendiano to take his place at the games table.
Djamileh cries, but Haroun consoles her. As moonlight illuminates the room, Haroun recognizes her and begins to realize that she loves him. He tries to resist his own feelings but eventually gives in. Splendiano has lost.
Orchestration
2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling cor anglais), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, strings. On stage: piano and tambourine, harp.
Opéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
in one act by Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
to a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Louis Gallet
Louis Gallet
Louis Gallet was an inexhaustible French writer of operatic libretti, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles, who is remembered above all for his adaptations of fiction—and Scripture— to provide librettos of cantatas and opera, notably by composers Georges...
, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
.
Composition history
De Musset wrote Namouna in 1832, consisting of 147 verses in three 'chants' (only the last dozen or so deal with the tale of Namouna). In 1871 when Bizet was stalled on other projects for the stage, Camille du LocleCamille du Locle
Camille du Locle was a French theatre director and a librettist. He was born in Orange, France. From 1862 he served as assistant to his father-in-law, Émile Perrin at the Paris Opéra, moving in 1870 to the Opéra-Comique....
, director of the Opéra-Comique suggested to him a piece written some years earlier by Louis Gallet based on Namouna. After some hesitation, Bizet composed the work during the late summer of 1871 but the premiere production was delayed due to trouble in finding suitable singers.
The original production formed part of a trio of new short works at the Opéra-Comique that spring: Paladilhe
Emile Paladilhe
Émile Paladilhe was a French composer of the late romantic period.-Biography:Émile Paladilhe was born in Montpellier. He was a musical child prodigy, and moved from his home in the south of France to Paris to begin his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris at age 10...
's Le Passant in April, then Djamileh, and La princesse jaune
La princesse jaune
La princesse jaune is an opéra comique in one act and five scenes by composer Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 12 June 1872....
(also an orientalist work) by Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
in June. Bizet had wanted Galli-Marié
Célestine Marié
Célestine Galli-Marié was a French mezzo-soprano most famous for creating the title role in the opera Carmen.-Career:...
(the first Carmen) or Marguerite Priola to create the title role - both were singing in the Paladilhe piece, but was obliged to take instead the inadequate Prelly.
On 17 June, Bizet wrote to a friend that, despite the lack of success of his new piece, he at least felt that he had found his path as a composer.
Performance history
Djamileh received its first performance on 22 May 1872 at the Opéra-ComiqueOpéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Although du Locle had lavished great care on the costumes and sets, after ten performances in 1872 it was not revived in Paris until 27 October 1938. Outside France productions were mounted in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
(1889), Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
(1890), and Dublin, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(1892).
The opera has been neglected for most of its existence, despite the admiration it received from both Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, who, after introducing it in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
(21 October 1892), conducted nineteen performances of it at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
between 1898 (first performance there 22 January 1898) and 1903, and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, who viewed it as a source of inspiration for Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
. Jussi Björling
Jussi Björling
Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th Century, Björling appeared frequently at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as well as at other major European opera...
sang Haroun in a 1933 revival of an earlier production at the Royal Swedish Opera
Royal Swedish Opera
Kungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...
, Stockholm.
Productions were mounted in 2008 by DCA Theater in Chicago and, in 2010, by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, directed by Jonathan Eaton and starring Matt Morgan as Haroun, Daniel Teadt as Splendiano, and Christina Nassif in the title role.
Roles
| Role | (Name of character in de Musset) |
Voice type | Premiere Cast, 22 May 1872 (Conductor: Adolphe Deloffre Adolphe Deloffre Louis Michel Adolphe Deloffre was a French violinist and conductor active in London and Paris, who conducted several important operatic premieres in the latter city, particularly by Charles Gounod and Georges Bizet.... ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Djamileh | (Namouna) | mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above... |
Aline Prelly (Baroness de Presles) |
| Haroun | (Hassan) | 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... |
Alphonse Duchesne |
| Splendiano | (not in de Musset) | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
Pierre-Armand Potel |
| A slave merchant | - | spoken | M Julien |
| Chorus of friends of Haroun, slaves, musicians | |||
Synopsis
- Place: The palace of HarounHarun al-RashidHārūn al-Rashīd was the fifth Arab Abbasid Caliph in Iraq. He was born in Rey, Iran, close to modern Tehran. His birth date remains a point of discussion, though, as various sources give the dates from 763 to 766)....
, in Cairo
At the end of day Haroun
Harun al-Rashid
Hārūn al-Rashīd was the fifth Arab Abbasid Caliph in Iraq. He was born in Rey, Iran, close to modern Tehran. His birth date remains a point of discussion, though, as various sources give the dates from 763 to 766)....
reclines and smokes in his palace, with his servant Splendiano; an off-stage chorus sing. The slave-girl Djamileh passes through the room unseen by Haroun, gazing tenderly at him.
Splendiano is looking over his master’s accounts when Haroun asks Splendiano where Djamileh is – and is told that she is near at hand, still in love. He remarks also that she will be disappointed as her month as lover to the sultan is nearly finished and she will be replaced. Haroun denies that he is in love with her and demands that she be sent away and a new girl would be brought. Splendiano confides that he is taken with Djamileh. Haroun’s heart is a desert: he loves no woman, only love itself. This gives hope to Splendiano that he will have Djamileh.
Haroun asks for supper to be served. Djamileh enters, dejected, and tells him of a bad dream she had where she was drowning in the sea, looking for him to save her, but there was no one. Haroun, aware of some affection for her, reassures her, and supper is served.
Haroun offers Djamileh a necklace. His friends arrive to spend the night playing dice. Before Djamileh can leave she is seen by the men who express their admiration; Djamileh is left hurt and confused, while Splendiano feels sure he will succeed in his conquest. He explains to Djamileh that she must leave and regain her freedom - and offers his love. She proposes that he present her to Haroun, disguised as the next slave-girl, and promises that if she fails to win Haroun’s heart that way she will give herself to Splendiano. Alone, she expresses her anxiety about her destiny and the fragility of love.
To Haroun's irritation, Splendiano interrupts the gambling to say that the slave merchant has brought a new girl, who then dances an almah; Haroun remains indifferent and returns to the game. Splendiano asks the merchant to replace the dancer with Djamileh, while being certain that she will soon be his.
Veiled, Djamileh enters in the dancer’s costume and, shy and nervous, makes to leave. Haroun, whose interest is now aroused, sends Splendiano to take his place at the games table.
Djamileh cries, but Haroun consoles her. As moonlight illuminates the room, Haroun recognizes her and begins to realize that she loves him. He tries to resist his own feelings but eventually gives in. Splendiano has lost.
Music and Orchestration
The work is full of original and delightful music. Despite the lack of drama or strong characterisation in the libretto, Bizet managed to overcome those weaknesses with strongly evocative music. The offstage chorus evoking sunset over the Nile, the changing moods of Haroun, and Splendiano's witty couplets (the latter more traditional opéra comique fare) are evidence of Bizet's growing musical powers. In his portrayal of Djamileh, his music looks forward to Ravel rather than back to Gounod; indeed much of Bizet's harmony baffled contemporary Parisian critics. At the Vienna production, the critic Hanslick was particularly taken with the exotic L'Almée, danse et choeur.Orchestration
2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling cor anglais), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, strings. On stage: piano and tambourine, harp.
Recordings
- Bizet: Djamileh (Lucia PoppLucia PoppLucia Popp was a notable Slovak operatic soprano. She began her career as a soubrette soprano, and later moved into the light-lyric and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire and then the lighter Richard Strauss and Wagner operas. Her career included performances at Vienna State Opera, the...
, Franco BonisolliFranco BonisolliFranco Bonisolli was an Italian operatic tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, notably as Manrico and Calaf.-Life and career:...
, Jean-Philippe Lafont; Conductor: Lamberto GardelliLamberto GardelliLamberto Gardelli was an Italian conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory, especially the works of Giuseppe Verdi....
- Munich Radio Orchestra) 1983. Label: Orfeo - Bizet: Djamileh (Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Jean-Luc Maurette, François le RouxFrançois le RouxFrançois le Roux is a French baritone. Le Roux began vocal studies at 19 with François Loup, winning prizes in Barcelona and Rio de Janeiro. He was a member of the Lyon Opera Company from 1980 to 1985, before appearing in many international houses, making his Paris Opéra debut in 1988 as Valentin...
; Conductor: Jacques Mercier - l'Orchestre National d'Île de France) 1988 Label: RCA