Les Horaces 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...

tic tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....

. The text was 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...

 after 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...

's Horace

Horace (play)

Horace is a 1972 television play written by Roy Minton and directed by Alan Clarke, first broadcast as part of BBC One's Play for Today series on 21 March 1972.-Plot:Diabetic Horace is mentally impaired and works in a joke shop...

.

The opera was commissioned by the Paris Opera after the success of Salieri's Les Danaïdes

Les Danaïdes

Les Danaïdes is an opera by Antonio Salieri, in 5 acts: more specifically, it is a tragédie lyrique. The opera was set to a libretto by Leblanc du Roullet and Baron Tschudi, who in turn adapted the work of Ranieri de' Calzabigi...

with the company.

Performance history

According to different sources, Les Horaces was first performed either at Fontainebleau on 2 November 1786 , or 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 2 December 1786 . According to Spire Pitou, however, both dates seem to be errors and "the correct date of the world première of Salieri's Les Horaces is 7 December 1786 at the Royal Academy of Music

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...

 ...". Anyway, it was unfortunately not well received. The failure of the opera to some extent has been blamed on the lack luster performances of the original performers.

Roles

Cast	Voice type	Premiere, December 2, 1786 (Conductor: - )
Camille	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...	Antoinette Cécile de Saint-Huberty
Curiace	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
Gran sacerdote	bass	Martin-Joseph Adrien
Jeune Horace	tenor	François Lays
Una compagna di Camille	soprano	Anne-Marie Jeanne Gavaudan, aînée
Vieil Horace	bass	Auguste-Athanase Chéron

Sources

• Pitou, Spire, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815, Greenwood Press, Westport/London, 1985 (ISBN 0-313-24394-8)
• Horaces, Les by John A Rice, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  ', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7