Le déserteur is an opéra comique

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...

by the French composer Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny

Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny

Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts .He is considered alongside André Grétry and François-André Danican Philidor to have been the founder of a new musical genre, the opéra comique, laying a path for other French composers such as...

 with 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 Michel-Jean Sedaine

Michel-Jean Sedaine

Michel-Jean Sedaine was a French dramatist, was born in Paris.- Biography :His father, who was an architect, died when Sedaine was quite young, leaving no fortune, and the boy began life as a mason's labourer...

. It was first staged at the Comédie-Italienne, 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...

 on 6 March 1769.

The work was Monsigny's greatest musical success and is one of the key operas of late 18th century French opéra comique. It was popular in Germany and was performed in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1787. At the Paris Opéra-Comique

Opéra-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...

 it was performed over 300 times throughout the 19th century and up to 1911. The work mixes serious and comic elements, an example of the latter being the behaviour of the drunkard Montauciel. The theme of a last-minute reprieve from execution influenced later rescue opera

Rescue opera

Rescue opera was a popular genre of opera in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in France and Germany. Generally, rescue operas deal with the rescue of a main character from danger and end with a happy dramatic resolution in which lofty humanistic ideals triumph over base motives...

.

Roles

Cast	Voice type	Premiere, 6 March 1769
Alexis, a soldier	bass	Joseph Caillot Joseph Caillot Joseph Caillot was a French actor and singer-Bibliography:*Émile Campardon, Les Comédiens du roi de la troupe italienne, Paris, Berger-Levrault et Cie, 1880, vol. I, pp. 85–95....
Louise, his fiancée	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...	Marie-Thérèse Laruette-Villette
Jean-Louis, Louise's father	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-Louis Laruette
Alexis's aunt	soprano	Bérard
Bertrand, Alexis's cousin	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:...	Antoine Trial Antoine Trial Antoine Trial was a French singer and actor. He was the younger brother of the musician Jean-Claude Trial and husband of soprano Marie-Jeanne ....
Jeannette, a young peasant	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...	Beaupré
Montauciel, a dragoon	tenor	Jean-Baptiste Guignard "Clairval"
Courchemin, a brigadier	bass	Nainville
Three guards	haute-contre, tenor, tenor
The jailer	spoken role

Synopsis

Alexis is engaged to be married to Louise. She plays a trick on him by pretending she is going to marry Bertrand instead. Alexis falls for the deception and deserts the army in despair. He is captured and thrown into jail to await execution. Louise goes to see the king to beg for mercy for Alexis. She receives a letter of reprieve but faints from exhaustion before she is able to deliver it. All ends happily, however, when the king arrives in person and frees Alexis.

Recording

• Le déserteur (musical numbers only): William Sharp (Alexis), Dominique Labelle (Louise), Ann Monoyios (Jeannette), David Newman (Montauciel/Second Guard), Eugene Galvin (Jean-Louis/Third Guard), Tony Boutté (Bertrand/First Guard), Darren Perry (Courchemin), Claire Kuttler (Aunt Marguerite), Andrew Adelsberger (Jailer), Opera Lafayette Orchestra, conducted by Ryan Brown (Naxos 8.660263-64, 2010)

Sources

• Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (1993)
• Amadeus Online (Italian)
• Sedaine, Michel (1769). Le déserteur: Drame en trois actes, en prose melée de musique. Par Monsieur Sedaine. La musique par M***. Représentée, pour la premiere fois, par les Comédiens Italiens ordinaire du Roi, le Lundi 6 Mars 1769, libretto, 82 pages. Paris: Chez Claude Herissant. View at Google Books.
• Del Teatro (Italian)
• Philippe Vendrix (ed.) L'opéra-comique en France au XVIIIe siècle (Mardaga, 1992)

External link

• Sung text of the Naxos recording with English translation at the Naxos web site