Les festes vénitiennes ("Venetian Festivities"), also spelled Les fêtes vénitiennes,[1] is an opéra-ballet by the French composer André Campra. It consists of a prologue (later sometimes omitted, abridged or replaced) and three entrées (four or five in subsequent versions). All versions of the libretto are by Antoine Danchet. It was first performed on 17 June 1710 by the Académie royale de musique in the Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris. According to the usage of the time, it was originally simply billed as a "ballet",[2] but it is one of the most important and successful instances of the new genre later classified by scholars as opéra-ballet, which had become popular in Paris around the end of the 17th century.[3]
Performance history
editAt the beginning of the 18th century, the Paris Opéra public was growing dissatisfied with the traditional "operatic fare consisting of lyric tragedies cast invariably in the mould created by Lully and Quinault",[4] and the innovative nature of the opéra-ballet, with its realistic locations and characters, and its comic plots, was seen as a viable alternative. The format of the new genre was exceedingly flexible: each entrée had its own independent intrigue and characters, and the various acts were loosely linked together by a tenuous thread (in Les festes vénitiennes, the Venice location).[3]
Campra and Danchet's opera proved incredibly popular from the beginning, and, through a trial and error approach, "it perpetuated itself to the point where new entrées were written to replace the acts that seemed to be losing their appeal".[4] Between June and December 1710, Campra and Danchet experimented with a total of two prologues and eight[5] entrées and the opera ran for several dozen performances, reaching its 51st mounting on 14 October when it was restructured in a version with a shortened prologue and four entrées[6] (which were to become five in the following month of December).
After its unprecedented success in 1710-1711, the opera was regularly revived over the next half-century (in 1712, 1713, 1721, 1731-1732, 1740, 1750-1751 and 1759), the different entrées being swapped around at various times, and provided ample opportunity for almost all the major artists who appeared on the stage of the Paris Opéra in this period.[7] Eventually, it chalked up the incredible number of about three hundred performances.[8]
Roles
edit| Roles[9] | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 17 June 1710[10] (Conductor: Louis de La Coste) |
|---|---|---|
| Prologue: "Le Triomphe de la Folie sur la Raison dans le temps de Carnaval" ("The triumph of Folly over Reason during the Carnival") | ||
| Folly | soprano | Marie-Catherine Poussin |
| Reason | soprano | Mlle Desmatins |
| Carnival | bass-baritone | Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard |
| Héraclite | bass-baritone | Charles Hardouin |
| Démocrite | taille (baritenor) | Louis Mantienne |
| First entrée: "La feste des barqueroles" ("The festival of boaters") | ||
| A Venice doctor | bass-baritone | Jean Dun 'père' |
| Lilla | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| Damiro | haute-contre (high tenor) | Jacques Cochereau |
| A (female) gondolier, representing Victory | soprano | Mlle Hacqueville (or D'Huqueville) |
| A (male) gondolier | haute-contre | Guesdon |
| Second entrée: "Les sérénades et les joueurs" ("Serenades and players") | ||
| Léandre | bass-baritone | Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard |
| Isabelle | soprano | Françoise Journet |
| Lucile | soprano | Mlle Pestel |
| Irène | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| Fortune | soprano | Françoise Dujardin |
| A follower of Fortune | haute-contre | Jean-Baptiste Buseau |
| Third entrée: "Les saltinbanques de la place St Marc ou L'Amour saltinbanque"[11] ("The acrobats of St Mark's Square, or Cupid the acrobat") | ||
| Filindo | bass-baritone | Charles Hardouin |
| Eraste | haute-contre | Jacques Cochereau |
| Léonore | soprano | Marie-Catherine Poussin |
| Nérine (travesti) | taille | Louis Mantienne |
| Amour acrobat (travesti) | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| First entrée added at a later date: "La feste marine" ("The marine festival")[12] |
First performed on 8 July 1710[10] | |
| Astophe | bass-baritone | Jean Dun 'père' |
| Dorante | haute-contre | Jacques Cochereau |
| Cephise | soprano | Françoise Journet |
| Doris | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| A mariner | haute-contre | Guesdon |
| Second entrée added at a later date: "Le bal ou le maître à danser" ("The dance, or the dancing master")[13] |
First performed on 8 August 1710[10] | |
| Alamir | bass-baritone | Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard |
| Themir | haute-contre | Jean-Baptiste Buseau |
| Iphise | soprano | Françoise Journet |
| A master of music | taille[14] | Louis Mantienne |
| A master of dance | dancer/taille[14] | François-Robert Marcel[15] |
| A masker | haute-contre | (not stated) |
| Third entrée added at a later date: "Les devins de la Place St Marc" ("The fortune-tellers of St Mark's Square")[16] |
First performed on 5 September 1710[10] | |
| Lèandre | bass-baritone | Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard |
| Zélie | soprano | Marie-Catherine Poussin |
| A gipsy woman | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| Fourth entrée added at a later date: "L'Opéra ou le maître à chanter" ("The Opera, or the singing master")[17] |
First performed on 14 October 1710[10] | |
| Damire (Boreas)[18] | bass-baritone | Charles Hardouin |
| Adolphe/An actor of the Opera performing Zephyr[19] | haute-contre | Jean-Baptiste Buseau |
| Leontine (Flore)[18] | soprano | Françoise Journet |
| Lucie (A shepherdess)[18] | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| The singing master | haute-contre | (not stated) |
| Rodolphe | bass-baritone | Courteil |
| Fifth entrée added at a later date: "Le triomphe de la Folie" ("The triumph of Folly")[20] |
First performed in December 1710[10] | |
| Harlequin | dancer/taille | François Dumoulin[21] |
| Folly | soprano | Marie-Catherine Poussin |
| A doctor | bass-baritone | Jean Dun 'père' |
| A Spaniard (man) | haute-contre | Jacques Cochereau |
| A Frenchman | bass-baritone | Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard |
| Columbine | soprano | Mlle Dun |
| Another Spaniard (man) | taille | ? |
| A Spanish girl | soprano | ? |
References
edit- Notes
- ^ The spelling more often employed today, according to modern French orthography, is 'fêtes', instead of the obsolete 'festes'. The modern spelling is adopted for instance by The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Le magazine de l'opéra baroque and Dizionario dell’opera. On the other hand, the term 'festes' is still used by Lajarte and Pitou and appears in the earliest sources available online, such as the scores cited below, the libretto published by Delormel in 1750 (all accessible at the site Gallica, Bibliothèque numérique della Bibliothèque Nationale de France), the original libretto as assessed by Maurice Barthélémy in Catalogue des imprimés musicaux anciens du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Liège, Liège, Mardaga, 1992, p. 34 (ISBN 978-2-87009-521-8), and the complete entrée librettos as reproduced by Christoph Ballard in 1714 in Recueil general ... (both accessible, the former only in part, at books.google.com). It is only after 1750, owing to the diffusion and enforcement of the third edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, that the new spelling 'fêtes' appears to have gradually come into common use, as can be seen from the libretto reprinted by Delormel in 1759 with the newly-spelt title (the title-page is reproduced in Le magazine de l’opéra baroque).
- ^ Cf. the period printed sources cited above.
- ^ a b Anthony.
- ^ a b Pitou, p. 223.
- ^ According to Anthony there were seven of them, but in fact there were eight, as is analytically stated below. The second prologue is just a shortened version of the original one.
- ^ Professor Anthony writes that, according to "Ballard’s printed editions", the version given at the 51st performance on 14 (and not 10) October 1710 had five entrées, including Les serenades et les jouers (which had been previously suppressed on 5 September). Although it has not been possible to check the 1710 printed libretto, surely Anthony’s statement does not accord with all the other sources cited in this article, and in particular with Ballard’s 1714 'printed edition' of all the librettos of the opera, which reports, regarding the 51st performance, a structure in a prologue and the following four entrées: Les devins as the first entrée, L’Amour saltinbanque (sic, cf. below) as the second, L’Opéra as the third, and Le bal as the fourth (Recueil general des opera..., p. 132).
- ^ Pitou, p. 224; Anthony; Lajarte, p. 113.
- ^ Le magazine de l'opéra baroque.
- ^ According to Recueil General Des Opera ....
- ^ a b c d e f Source: Le magazine de l'opéra baroque, page: Les fêtes vénitiennes and Parfaict.
- ^ The French term 'saltimbanque', meaning a street (acrobatics) performer, is spelled 'saltinbanque' in the period librettos according to its Italian etymology: 'salta in banco', leaps on a bar (the temporary stage).
- ^ This entrée was substituted for La feste des barquerolles at the 10th performance.
- ^ Le bal was interpolated as the new second entrée, the prologue being suppressed, at the 23rd billing.
- ^ a b Sometimes reported as haute-contre roles, the parts of the masters, of music and of dance, are actually notated in the score in the tenor clef (and not in the alto clef commonly used for the haute-contre voice).
- ^ Marcel was not a professional singer, but a first-rate member of the Ballet, evidently considered fit to perform a dancing master.
- ^ This entrée was substituted for Les sérénades et les joueurs at the 34th showing.
- ^ This entrée, which also includes, as a play within a play, another miniature opera, Le ballet de Flore, was substituted for La feste marine at the 51st billing when the prologue was also restored, albeit in an abridged version.
- ^ a b c The role interpreted by each character in the metatheatrical miniature opera Le ballet de Flore is given in brackets.
- ^ Zephyr is a character of the metatheatrical opera Le ballet de Flore, performed during the course of the entrée.
- ^ The small 'comedy' Le triomphe de la Folie was added to Les festes vénitiennes as its last entrée during December when the opera had already enjoyed 66 performances between June and November.
- ^ Lajarte, I, p. 113. François Dumoulin was not a professional singer, but a first-rate member of the Ballet along with his three (step)brothers Henri, Pierre and David.
- Sources
- Period scores:
- Les Barquerolles Entrée, manuscript kept at and digitized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (accessible for free online at Gallica – B.N.F.)
- Feste Marine Entrée, manuscript kept at and digitized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (accessible for free online at Gallica – B.N.F.)
- Le Bal // nouvelle // entrée // ajoutée aux // festes // venitiennes // Par // M. Campra, manuscript kept at and digitized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (accessible for free online at Gallica – B.N.F.)
- Le triomphe de la folie , comedie mis [sic] en musique par Monsieur Campra, Paris, Ballard, 1711 (accessible for free online at Gallica – B.N.F.)
- Les Festes Vénitiennes , Ballet en Musique, par Monsieur Campra, Maître de Musique de la Chappelle du Roy ; Représenté pour la premiere fois, par l'Academie Royale de Musique. Le Mardy dix-septiéme Juin 1710. Conforme à la Remise au Théâtre, du Jeudy 14 Juin 1731, Paris, Ballard, 1731 (accessible for free online at Gallica – B.N.F.)
- James R. Anthony, Fêtes vénitiennes, Les, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Grove (Oxford University Press), New York, 1997, II, pp. 175–176, ISBN 978-0-19-522186-2
- Cowart, Georgia (Summer 2001). "Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris? Louis XIV and the Politics of Subversion at the Paris Opéra". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 54 (2): 265–302. doi:10.1525/jams.2001.54.2.265. JSTOR 10.1525/jams.2001.54.2.265.
- (in French) Jean-Nicolas de Francine (ed.), Recueil general des opera réprésentez par l'Academie Royale de Musique, depuis son etablissement. Tome dixième, Paris, Ballard, 1714, pp. 129–252 (accessible for free online in books.google)
- (in French) Théodore Lajarte, Bibliothèque Musicale du Théatre de l'Opéra. Catalogue Historique, Chronologique, Anecdotique, Tome 1, Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, 1878 (accessible online in Internet Archive)
- (in Italian) Raffaele Mellace, Fêtes vénitiennes, Les, in Piero Gelli and Filippo Poletti (eds.), Dizionario dell'opera. 2008, Milan, Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2007, pp. 469–470, ISBN 978-88-6073-184-5 (reproduced online at Opera Manager)
- (in French) François and Claude Parfaict, Dictionnaire des Théâtres de Paris, contenant toutes les pièces qui ont été représentées jusqu'à présent sur les différents Théâtres François et sur celui de l'Académie Royale de Musique ..., Paris, Rozet, 1767, VI, pp. 115–129 (accessible for free online in books.google)
- Spire Pitou, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Genesis and Glory, 1671-1715, Greenwood Press, Westport/London, 1983 (ISBN 0-313-21420-4)
- The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)
- (in French) Le magazine de l'opéra baroque, page: Les fêtes vénitiennes
- Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "Les fêtes vénitiennes". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).