La mort d'Adam
La mort d'Adam is a tragédie lyrique on a biblical theme in 3 acts by Jean-François Le Sueur with a French libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard after Klopstock, first performed in 1809, though written a few years earlier.[1] Musicologist Winton Dean described the work as "the most comprehensive and spectacular opera ever conceived", noting that it "combines a Klopstock play with substantial portions of the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost" and a cast which extends from "the entire human race... the total population of heaven and hell", and with a "Leitmotiv system" of twelve themes, some recalled in combination.[2]
Composition and performance history edit
Le Sueur wrote the opera while working as an instructor at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris. The opera was initially scheduled to be performed at the Conservatoire but was dropped in favor of Charles-Simon Catel's Sémiramis. Upset over this decision, Le Sueur published anonymously a pamphlet entitled Projet d'un plan général de l'instruction musicale en France, in which he harshly criticized the methods of instruction followed at the Conservatoire, his rival Catel, and Catel's patron, the director of the Conservatoire. Le Sueur was subsequently fired from the Conservatoire on 23 September 1802, and the composer lived in a state of poverty for about a year before he became maître de chapelle to the First Consul in Paris in early 1804.
Eventually, Le Sueur was able to mount a production of La mort d'Adam. The opera was first performed at the Académie impériale in Paris on 21 March 1809,[3] with a choreography by Louis-Jacques Milon (act 1) and Pierre-Gabriel Gardel (acts 2, 3), "but it failed to arouse much enthusiasm and had to be dropped from the repertory permanently on 4 February 1810 after 16 performances".[4]
Winton Dean argues that the opera had a great influence on Berlioz, Le Sueur's pupil shortly after the full score was published, and that "certain elements in Berlioz's style can be explained only by reference to Le Sueur". He points to the distinction between a grand overall design and a restrained, classical means of musical utterance, and to the sequence of separate tableaux of dramatic power with connecting narratives omitted or just implicit; in addition, there are symphonies fantastiques and a symphonie funèbre in La mort d'Adam. Le Sueur annotated his score, in French and Italian, with explanations about the musical language in antiquity which he had incorporated into his work, and some of these devices are found in later works by Berlioz, such as Les Troyens and L'enfance du Christ.[5]
Roles edit
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast,[6] 21 March 1809[7] |
|---|---|---|
| Adam | bass | Henri-Étienne Dérivis |
| Seth | baritone | François Lays or Lay |
| Caïn | tenor | Étienne Lainez |
| L'ombre d'Abel, the shade of Abel | tenor | Louis Nourrit |
| L'ange de la mort, the angel of Death | bass | Mr Bonel |
| Satan | bass | Jean-Honoré Bertin |
| Éve | soprano | Marie-Thérèse Davoux, called Mlle Maillard |
| Sélime | soprano | Mme Granier |
| Sunim | ? | ? |
| Coryphée, coryphaeus | bass | Mr Martin |
| Coryphée, coryphaea | soprano | Mlle Pauline |
References edit
- ^ Jean Mongrédien. "Jean-François Le Sueur". In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan, London & New York, 1997.
- ^ Dean, Winton. Opera under the French Revolution. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 94th Session (1967-1968), pp. 77-96.
- ^ "Jean-Francois Lesueur", Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ Pitou, Spire (1985). The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Rococo and Romantic, 1715–1815. Westport/London: Greenwood Press. p. 372. ISBN 0-313-24394-8.
- ^ Dean, Winton. The New Oxford History of Music (ed. Gerald Abraham) – The Age of Beethoven 1790–1820, II French Opera. Oxford University Press, London, 1982, pp. 88–90.
- ^ La mort d'Adam et son apothéose, Tragédie lyrique, En trois actes, Représentée pour la première fois sur le Théâtre de l'Académie Impériale de Musique, le mardi 21 Mars 1809, Paris, Roullet (printer: Gratiot), 1809
- ^ Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "La mort d´Adam et son apothéose, 21 March 1809". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).