La reine de Saba is a grand opera

Grand Opera

Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...

 in four or five acts by Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

 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 Jules Barbier

Jules Barbier

Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, writer and opera librettist who often wrote in collaboration with Michel Carré...

 and Michel Carré

Michel Carré

Michel Carré was a prolific French librettist.He went to Paris in 1840 intending to become a painter but took up writing instead. He wrote verse and plays before turning to writing libretti. His libretto for Mirette was never performed in France but was later performed in English adaptation in...

 inspired by Gérard de Nerval

Gérard de Nerval

Gérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...

's Le voyage en Orient. It was premiered at the Salle Le Peletier by 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 February 28, 1862.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, February 28, 1862 (Conductor: Pierre-Louis Dietsch Pierre-Louis Dietsch Pierre-Louis Dietsch was a French composer and conductor, perhaps best remembered for the much anthologized Ave Maria 'by' Jacques Arcadelt, which he loosely arranged from that composer's three part madrigal Nous voyons que les hommes.Fétis has reported that Dietsch was a choirboy at the Dijon... )
Balkis, the queen	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Pauline Guéymard-Lauters
Bénoni	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...	Hamäckers
Sarahil	mezzo-soprano	Tarby
Adoniram Hiram Abiff Hiram Abiff is a character who figures prominently in an allegorical play that is presented during the third degree of Craft Freemasonry... , sculptor and architect of the first temple Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....	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...	Louis Guéymard Louis Guéymard Louis Guéymard was a French operatic tenor. Born in Chapponay, his parents were farmers and he worked on his family's farm until the age of 19. He then received voice taining at the Opéra National de Lyon...
Soliman, the biblical Solomon Solomon Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...	bass	Jules-Bernard Belval
Amrou	tenor	Raphaël-Auguste Grisy
Phanor	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...	Mécène Marié de l'Isle Mécène Marié de l'Isle Claude-Marie-Mécène Marié de l'Isle was a French musician and opera singer.He won first prize for double-bass at the Conservatoire in 1830, and began his career as a tenor in the opera chorus of the Opéra-Comique in Paris. He made his professional opera début at the opera house in Metz as Raoul in...
Méthousaël	bass	Théodore-Jean-Joseph Coulon
Sadoc	bass	Frèret

English version by Henry Farnie

An English reworking of the libretto by Henry Farnie

Henry Brougham Farnie

Henry Brougham Farnie , often called H. B. Farnie, was a British librettist and adapter of French operettas and an author...

 "interwoven [with] certain legends and traditions of freemasonry

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

" was titled Irene. It transposed the action to Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 in the time of Suleyman the Magnificent and the building of the Great Mosque and used almost all of Gounod's music.

Highlights

The big song from La reine de Saba is the tenor aria 'Inspirez-moi, race divine!', in which the hero invokes the example of the sons of Tubal-Cain (son of Lamech and Zillah, the founder of metalworking) as the molten metal flows into its mould. In its English version 'How vain and weak a thing is man... Lend me your aid, O race divine', this became a war-horse of the concert repertoire, surviving into the 20th century in the recordings of Edward Lloyd

Edward Lloyd (tenor)

Edward Lloyd was a British tenor singer who excelled in concert and oratorio performance, and was recognised as a legitimate successor of John Sims Reeves as the foremost tenor exponent of that genre during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.- Early training in choral tradition :Edward...

 and Walter Widdop

Walter Widdop

Walter Widdop was a British operatic tenor who is best remembered for his Wagnerian performances. His repertoire also encompassed works by Verdi, Leoncavallo, Handel and Bach.-Career:...

. It was also recorded by Enrico Caruso, in one of whose versions the English text was re-translated back into French with the exceptionable formula: 'Prêtes-moi ton aide'.