Adèle de Ponthieu is an opera by the French composers Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Pierre Montan Berton, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris (the Paris Opera) on 1 December 1772. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The libretto was written by Jean-Paul-André Razins de Saint-Marc, after a tragedy by Pierre-Antoine de La Place, staged at the Comédie-Française in 1757.[1]
The opera had little success in its first run and was only revived in 1775 in five acts, for 38 performances, before being withdrawn for good.[2] The three-act libretto, however, was later set by Niccolò Piccinni in 1781.
Roles
edit| Cast | Voice type | Premiere 1 December 1772 |
|---|---|---|
| Guillaume, Count of Ponthieu | basse-taille (bass-baritone) | Henri Larrivée |
| Adèle, the Count's daughter | soprano | Sophie Arnould |
| Alphonse, a foreign knight | bass-baritone | Nicolas Gélin |
| Raimond de Mayenne, a relative of the Count and a humble squire | haute-contre | Joseph Legros |
| Alise, Adèle's confidante | soprano | Mlle Châteauneuf |
| Juges du camp (judges of the camp) | 2 bass-baritones, haute-contre, taille (baritenor) | Cassaignade, de la Suze, Cavalier, Méon |
| Un berger (a shepherd) | bass-baritone | Durand |
| Une bergère (a shepherdess) | soprano | Mlle Beaumesnil (stage name of Henriette-Adélaïde de Villars) |
| Une jongleuse (a female jongleur) | soprano | Mlle Beaumesnil |
| Chorus: The court of the Count, knights, squires, king of arms, heralds, officers of the joust, fiddlers, male and female jongleurs, shepherds, shepherdesses | ||
References
edit- Notes
- ^ Pitou, pp. 9-10. Cf. Adèle, comtesse de Ponthieu, Tragédie. Par M. de la Place. Représentée par les Comédiens Ordinaire du Roi, le 28 Avril 1757, & remise au Théâtre au mois de Novembre de la même année, Paris, Jorry, 1758 (copy at books.google).
- ^ Lajarte, p. 256.
- Sources
- (in French) Théodore Lajarte, Bibliothèque Musicale du Théatre de l'Opéra. Catalogue Historique, Chronologique, Anecdotique, Tome 1, Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, 1878 (copy at Internet Archive)
- Spire Pitou, 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
- (in French) Original 1772 libretto at Gallica, BNF
- (in French) Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse Dictionnaire des Opéras, p. 6