Messidor is a four-act 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 drame lyrique by Alfred Bruneau

Alfred Bruneau

Louis-Charles-Bonaventure-Alfred Bruneau was a French composer who played a key role in the introduction of realism in French opera....

 to a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 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 Emile Zola

Émile Zola

Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...

. The opera premiered on February 19, 1897 in Paris

Palais Garnier

The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...

. The opera takes its name from the tenth month

Messidor

Messidor was the tenth month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the Latin word messis, which means harvest....

 of the French Republican Calendar

French Republican Calendar

The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871...

.

Although initially successful, the popularity of Messidor was adversely affected by the Dreyfus Affair

 which was occurring at the time of the opera's premiere. Because both Bruneau and his good friend Zola were active supporters of Alfred Dreyfus

Alfred Dreyfus

Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...

 during his trial for treason

Treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

, the French public did not welcome the composer's music for several years afterward.

The collaborations between Bruneau and Zola, of which Messidor is the most notable, were considered an attempt at a French alternative to the Italian verismo

Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....

 movement in opera.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, February 19, 1897
Gaspard	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...	Jean Noté Jean Noté Jean-Baptiste Noté was a Belgian operatic baritone. He graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Ghent in 1884 with first prizes in singing and lyrical declamation. He made his professional opera debut in 1885 at the Opéra de Lille as Lord Enrico Ashton in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor...
Guillaume	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...	Albert Alvarez
Mathias, Guillaume's cousin	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...	Jean-François Delmas Jean-François Delmas (singer) Jean-François Delmas was a French bass-baritone who created roles in many French operas including Athanaël in Thaïs....
Véronique, Guillaume's mother	contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...	Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin was a French operatic contralto who had a prolific career in France from 1879-1905. She possessed a rich-toned and flexible voice that had a wide vocal range...
Hélène, Gaspard's daughter	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...	Lucy Berthet

Synopsis

Set in Ariège

Ariège

Ariège is a department in southwestern France named after the Ariège River.- History :Ariège is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the counties of Foix and Couserans....

, a region in the south-west of France, the opera tells the story of a greedy peasant, Gaspard, who has appropriated for himself a gold-bearing stream, which had previously provided income for the entire community. His daughter, Hélène, and Guillaume, a young and virtuous man, fall in love, but Guillaume's mother, Véronique, has accused Gaspard of murdering her husband. Ultimately Gaspard's mining operation fails, and his cousin Mathias is found to be the real murderer.

Vocal Score

The vocal score

Vocal score

A vocal score or piano-vocal score is a music score of an opera, or a vocal or choral composition with orchestra such as an oratorio or cantata, in which the vocal parts are written out in full but the accompaniment is reduced and adapted for keyboard...

was published in 1897 and is now available online Messidor, Choudens.