Andromaque (opera)
Encyclopedia
Andromaque is an opera
in three acts by the composer André Ernest Modeste Grétry
. The French libretto is an adaptation of Jean Racine
's play Andromaque
by Louis-Guillaume Pitra (1735-1818). It was first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique
, Paris on 6 June 1780. It was the only opera Grétry wrote in the form of a tragédie lyrique.
of his time and Andromaque was his only tragic opera for the Académie Royale de Musique. During the 1770s, Christoph Willibald von Gluck had produced a series of famous works for the Académie, including Iphigénie en Aulide
, Armide
and Iphigénie en Tauride
. The director of the Académie, Anne-Pierre-Jacques de Vismes du Valgay, had in fact initially intended the libretto of Iphigénie en Tauride for Grétry before handing it to Gluck. Grétry was unhappy with this turn of events and so, in compensation, de Vismes offered him the chance to set an adaptation of Racine's Andromaque (1667). This was part of the contemporary fashion for using plays from the French Classical theatre as the basis for libretti; other examples include Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide (based on Racine), Sacchini's Le Cid and Salieri
's Les Horaces
(both taken from plays by Corneille
). Andromaque was a particular challenge since it was one of the most renowned and frequently performed works in the French repertoire. Grétry relied on the poet Louis-Guillaume Pitra to cut down and adapt Racine's tragedy. The composer worked fast on the score, finishing it in 30 days. As he wrote in his memoirs, "The author of the text, Pitra, was with me all the time. Constantly carried along by the beauty and the pace of the action, I wrote it in one go."
The process of putting the finished work on the stage was much slower, however. The Académie Royale de Musique originally intended to perform Andromaque in May 1778, but a dispute arose with the Comédie-Française
theatre, which claimed it had exclusive rights to Racine's play. Once this quarrel was resolved, the Académie rescheduled the premiere for April 1780 but again had to postpone it when the soprano Rosalie Levasseur
, who was due to play the title role, fell ill. The first performance finally took place on 6 June 1780. Audience reaction was mixed. The work was criticised for having too many choruses, too few dances and too tragic an ending. Critics disliked Grétry's change of style from the lightness of his opéras comiques. For example, La Harpe
complained that Grétry had "left his habitual genre for that of Gluck, a desertion that is not to his advantage. In this work there is nothing but shrill and tedious noise, and all the failings of Gluck without the presence of what redeems them to some extent, that is to say, expressive pieces and an understanding of theatrical effect." Grétry responded by revising the third act of Andromaque by adding a spectacular wedding celebration to provide a happy ending. This second version was performed in 1781 to greater success, but its run was cut short by a serious fire at the opera house and Andromaque was never revived in France.
Hermione is in love with Pyrrhus, her fiancé, but he is in love with Andromaque, the widow of the Trojan hero Hector whom he is holding captive. The Greeks, led by Oreste (who is in love with Hermione) want to put Andromaque and Hector's son Astyanax to death to prevent him ever taking revenge for the fall of Troy when he grows up. Pyrrhus refuses to comply with their request, but this fails to win him Andromaque's love, and he turns to Hermione instead.
Oreste is furious with Pyrrhus and plans to carry off Hermione for himself. Hermione rejects Andromaque's pleas to save her son. Andromaque again begs Pyrrhus to spare Astyanax. Pyrrhus says he will do so only if Andromaque agrees to marry him. Andromaque consents but decides to kill herself before the wedding can take place. When Hermione hears the news that Pyrrhus now means to marry Andromaque she is outraged and orders Oreste to kill Pyrrhus.
Andromaque comes to pray at Hector's tomb for the last time. At the wedding ceremony for Pyrrhus and Andromaque, Pyrrhus declares he will be a good father to Astyanax and will make him King of Troy. This spurs the furious Greeks into killing Pyrrhus. Oreste announces Pyrrhus's death to Hermione who is horrified and disclaims any responsibility. She stabs herself over Pyrrhus's corpse. The rejected Oreste is plunged into despair and goes mad.
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...
in three acts by the composer André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry was acomposer from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège , who worked from 1767 onwards in France and took French nationality. He is most famous for his opéras comiques....
. The French libretto is an adaptation of Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's play Andromaque
Andromaque
Andromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thérèse, by the royal company of actors, called "les Grands...
by Louis-Guillaume Pitra (1735-1818). It was first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique
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...
, Paris on 6 June 1780. It was the only opera Grétry wrote in the form of a tragédie lyrique.
Background and performance history
Grétry was regarded as the leading composer of opéra comiqueOpéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
of his time and Andromaque was his only tragic opera for the Académie Royale de Musique. During the 1770s, Christoph Willibald von Gluck had produced a series of famous works for the Académie, including Iphigénie en Aulide
Iphigénie en Aulide
Iphigénie en Aulide is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by Leblanc du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine's tragedy Iphigénie...
, Armide
Armide (Gluck)
Armide is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, his fifth for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works. It was first performed in Paris at the Académie Royale on 23 September 1777....
and Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard....
. The director of the Académie, Anne-Pierre-Jacques de Vismes du Valgay, had in fact initially intended the libretto of Iphigénie en Tauride for Grétry before handing it to Gluck. Grétry was unhappy with this turn of events and so, in compensation, de Vismes offered him the chance to set an adaptation of Racine's Andromaque (1667). This was part of the contemporary fashion for using plays from the French Classical theatre as the basis for libretti; other examples include Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide (based on Racine), Sacchini's Le Cid and 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....
's Les Horaces
Les Horaces
Les Horaces is an operatic tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri. The text was by Nicolas-François Guillard after Pierre Corneille's Horace....
(both taken from plays by 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...
). Andromaque was a particular challenge since it was one of the most renowned and frequently performed works in the French repertoire. Grétry relied on the poet Louis-Guillaume Pitra to cut down and adapt Racine's tragedy. The composer worked fast on the score, finishing it in 30 days. As he wrote in his memoirs, "The author of the text, Pitra, was with me all the time. Constantly carried along by the beauty and the pace of the action, I wrote it in one go."
The process of putting the finished work on the stage was much slower, however. The Académie Royale de Musique originally intended to perform Andromaque in May 1778, but a dispute arose with the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
theatre, which claimed it had exclusive rights to Racine's play. Once this quarrel was resolved, the Académie rescheduled the premiere for April 1780 but again had to postpone it when the soprano Rosalie Levasseur
Rosalie Levasseur
Rosalie Levasseur or Le Vasseur was a French soprano. Known as 'Mlle Rosalie', she is best remembered for her work with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck....
, who was due to play the title role, fell ill. The first performance finally took place on 6 June 1780. Audience reaction was mixed. The work was criticised for having too many choruses, too few dances and too tragic an ending. Critics disliked Grétry's change of style from the lightness of his opéras comiques. For example, La Harpe
Jean-François de La Harpe
Jean-François de La Harpe was a French playwright, writer and critic.-Life:La Harpe was born in Paris of poor parents. His father, who signed himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud...
complained that Grétry had "left his habitual genre for that of Gluck, a desertion that is not to his advantage. In this work there is nothing but shrill and tedious noise, and all the failings of Gluck without the presence of what redeems them to some extent, that is to say, expressive pieces and an understanding of theatrical effect." Grétry responded by revising the third act of Andromaque by adding a spectacular wedding celebration to provide a happy ending. This second version was performed in 1781 to greater success, but its run was cut short by a serious fire at the opera house and Andromaque was never revived in France.
Roles
| Cast | Voice type | Premiere: 6 June 1780 |
|---|---|---|
| Andromaque (Andromache Andromache In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled... ) |
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... |
Rosalie Levasseur Rosalie Levasseur Rosalie Levasseur or Le Vasseur was a French soprano. Known as 'Mlle Rosalie', she is best remembered for her work with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.... |
| Pyrrhus Neoptolemus Neoptolemus was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war... |
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... |
Joseph Legros Joseph Legros Joseph Legros was a French singer and composer of the 18th century. He is best remembered for his association with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck... |
| Hermione Hermione (mythology) In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen; however, some sources state that her mother also had a daughter, Iphigenia, by Theseus, as well as three younger sons, one by Menelaus, the others by Paris, prince of Troy.Hermione was nine when her mother left with Paris... |
soprano | Marie-Joséphine Laguerre |
| Oreste (Orestes Orestes Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , by Euripides*Orestes, the character in Sophocles' tragedy Electra*Orestes, the character in Aeschylus' trilogy of tragedies, Oresteia... ) |
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... |
Henri Larrivée |
| Phoenix | ||
Act 1
Scene: the palace of PyrrhusHermione is in love with Pyrrhus, her fiancé, but he is in love with Andromaque, the widow of the Trojan hero Hector whom he is holding captive. The Greeks, led by Oreste (who is in love with Hermione) want to put Andromaque and Hector's son Astyanax to death to prevent him ever taking revenge for the fall of Troy when he grows up. Pyrrhus refuses to comply with their request, but this fails to win him Andromaque's love, and he turns to Hermione instead.
Act 2
Scene: The portOreste is furious with Pyrrhus and plans to carry off Hermione for himself. Hermione rejects Andromaque's pleas to save her son. Andromaque again begs Pyrrhus to spare Astyanax. Pyrrhus says he will do so only if Andromaque agrees to marry him. Andromaque consents but decides to kill herself before the wedding can take place. When Hermione hears the news that Pyrrhus now means to marry Andromaque she is outraged and orders Oreste to kill Pyrrhus.
Act 3
Scene: Hector's tombAndromaque comes to pray at Hector's tomb for the last time. At the wedding ceremony for Pyrrhus and Andromaque, Pyrrhus declares he will be a good father to Astyanax and will make him King of Troy. This spurs the furious Greeks into killing Pyrrhus. Oreste announces Pyrrhus's death to Hermione who is horrified and disclaims any responsibility. She stabs herself over Pyrrhus's corpse. The rejected Oreste is plunged into despair and goes mad.
Recording
- Andromaque Karine Deshayes, Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Sébastien Guèze, Tassis Christoyannis, Chorus and Orchestra of Le Concert Spirituel, conducted by Hervé NiquetHervé NiquetHervé Niquet is a French conductor, harpsichordist, tenor, and the director of Le Concert Spirituel, specializing in French Baroque music.-Biography:...
(Glossa, 2010)