Le Cid is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in four acts and ten tableaux by Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

 to a French 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...

, Édouard Blau

Édouard Blau

Édouard Blau, born Blois 30 May 1836, died Paris, 7 January 1906) was a French dramatist and opera librettist. He was a cousin of Alfred Blau, another librettist of the same period....

 and Adolphe d'Ennery

Adolphe d'Ennery

Adolphe Philippe d'Ennery or Dennery was a French Jewish dramatist and novelist.Born in Paris, his real surname was Philippe...

. It is based on the play of the same name

Le Cid

Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...

 by Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

.

It was first performed by a star-studded cast at the Paris Opéra

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 November 30, 1885 in the presence of President Grévy

Jules Grévy

François Paul Jules Grévy was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of...

, with Jean de Reszke

Jean de Reszke

Jean de Reszke, born Jan Mieczyslaw, , was a Polish tenor. Renowned internationally for the high quality of his singing and the elegance of his bearing, he became the biggest male opera star of the late 19th century....

 as Rodrigue, and had been seen 150 times there by 1919 but faded from the repertory after that. While the opera itself is not in the standard operatic repertory, the ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 suite is a popular concert and recording piece which includes dances from different regions of Spain. The opera retains a marginal place on the stage due mostly to the ballet suite and a recording of a live concert performance on 8 March 1976 at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 with Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

 and Grace Bumbry

Grace Bumbry

Grace Bumbry , an American opera singer, is considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation, as well as a major soprano for many years...

. It was revived at the 1994 Massenet Festival

Massenet Festival

Massenet Festival is a biennale festival of music by French composer, Jules Massenet held at Saint-Étienne, France, close to the area where the composer was born....

, in 1999 at Seville, a 2001 production by the Washington Opera, starring Domingo, was shown on PBS television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, and was seen in Zurich in January 2008.

Roles

Role	Voice type Voice type A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types...	Premiere Cast, 30 November 1885 (Conductor: Ernest Altès)
Chimène	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...	Fidès Devriès
Rodrigue	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...	Jean de Reszke Jean de Reszke Jean de Reszke, born Jan Mieczyslaw, , was a Polish tenor. Renowned internationally for the high quality of his singing and the elegance of his bearing, he became the biggest male opera star of the late 19th century....
Don Diègue	lyric bass	Edouard de Reszke Edouard de Reszke Édouard de Reszke, originally Edward, was a Polish bass from Warsaw. Born with an impressive natural voice and equipped with compelling histrionic skills, he became one of the most illustrious opera singers active in Europe and America during the late-Victorian Era.-Career:Édouard de Reszke was...
Le Roi	bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...	Léon Melchissédec Léon Melchissédec Léon Melchissédec was a French baritone who enjoyed a long career in the French capital across a broad range of operatic genres, and later made some recordings and also taught at the Paris Conservatoire.-Life and Career:He played second violin in the Théâtre de Saint-Étienne before coming to Paris...
Le comte de Gormas	bass	Pol Plançon Pol Plançon Pol-Henri Plançon was a distinguished French operatic bass . He was one of the most acclaimed singers active during the 1880s, 1890s and early 20th century—a period often referred to as the "Golden Age of Opera".In addition to being among the earliest international opera stars to have made...
L'Infante	soprano	Rosa Bosman
Saint Jacques	baritone	Lambert
L'envoyé maure	basse chantante	Balleroy
Don Arias	tenor	Girard
Don Alonzo	bass	Sentein
Chorus: Noblemen, Ladies of the court, Bishops, Priests, Monks, Captains and Soldiers, People ; Dancers (for 2nd Act ballet).

Synopsis

Rodrigue returns from victory over the Moors and receives knighthood from King Ferdinand, at the house of Count Gormas, whose daughter, Chimène, is in love with the warrior. The King and his family approve, although the King's daughter herself loves Rodrigue. The latter match, however, is impossible since the hero is not of royal blood. The King bestows upon Don Diego, father of Rodrigue, a governorship expected by Count Gormas. The enraged Count insults Don Diego, who, too old to fight, calls upon his son to uphold his honor—without naming his adversary.
Although grieved upon learning his adversary's identity, Rodrigue is obliged to go through with the duel, and more by accident than design kills the Count. Chimène swears vengeance.

In the great square before the palace of the King at Seville a crowd of merrymakers has gathered for a festival day. In the midst of the revelry Chimène appears and begs the King to bring revenge upon Rodrigue. The King refuses, and learning that the Moors are advancing, bids her delay her vengeance until the close of the campaign, for Rodrigue is to lead the Spanish forces. Before departing, Rodrigue gains an interview with Chimène, and finds that her love is as strong as her desire for retribution.
At first seemingly near defeat, Rodrigue prays and resigns his fate to Providence. Saint James appears to him in a vision, and the saint promises him that Rodrigue's army will win the battle. There is a sudden turn of fortune and the Spaniards are victorious.

First reports come that the army has been defeated and its leader slain. Chimène has her revenge, but is prostrated with grief and fervently declares her love. A second report reverses the news and Rodrigue returns to find his beloved still implacable. The King, shrewdly enough, now promises Chimène he will punish the warrior, but Solomon-like asks her to pronounce the death sentence. This unexpected decision causes her once more to change her mind, and when Rodrigue draws his dagger and threatens to end his own life if she will not wed him, she is compelled to acknowledge that love is triumphant.

Noted arias

• Rodrigue: "O noble lame étincelante"
• Chimène: "Pleurez, pleurez mes yeux"
• Rodrigue: "O souverain, o juge, o père"