Youtor
علي وحدة ونص 1 الجزء الاول
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HERCULANUM • Grand opéra en 4 actes et 5 tableaux • Composer: Félicien David (1810–1876) • Libretto: Joseph Mery Terence Hadot • First performance: Opéra de Paris, 4 March 1859 • SETTING : Herculanum, 79 AD, in the reign of Titus, a year after the destruction of Jerusalem. • PLOT : The opera pits Christians against pagan decadence in Flavian Italy, with a guest appearance by Satan himself and ends with the cataclysmic eruption of Vesuvius. The pagan princess Olympia seduces Hélios; her brother the proconsul Nicanor lusts after the maiden Lilia, but is killed by a lightning bolt. Satan, released from hell, disguises himself as Nicanor. At the end, Vesuivus erupts, killing everyone. • David, a Saint-Simonian (a utopian Socialist Christian), is best remembered as the composer of the exotic ode-symphonie ‘Le Désert’ (1844), which uses music from his travels in Egypt and Turkey, including a ‘Chant du muezzin’ sung in Arabic. With Reyer’s ‘Sélam’ (1850), it is one of two great French symphonies on Middle Eastern themes. David’s grand opéra shows the same imaginative instrumentation and choral scenes, but is hampered by a strange libretto. • David treats the opera as a morality play. Like Meyerbeer’s ‘Robert le Diable’ (1831) [ • Giacomo Meyerbeer - ROBERT LE DIABLE ... ], the devil and the soprano both try to get hold of the soul of the tenor, who vacillates between the two. When, shortly before the volcano erupts, she forgives him for deserting her for the mezzo, this is explicitly an act of divine mercy. The apocalyptic final act, depicting the destruction of Herculanum, caused a frisson in Paris in the 1850s. Berlioz—whose monumental ‘Requiem’ (1837) shows he was no slouch at apocalyptic frescoes—thought it one of the finest spectacles he had seen. • However, the mixture of religion and melodrama, with scant regard for history, makes it unlikely to hold the stage today. Even in its day, Félix Clément found it dramatically meagre. Like Gounod’s ‘Reine de Saba’ (1862) or Bizet’s ‘Pêcheurs de perles’ (1863), it is a melodrama set against an exotic background, rather than, like Meyerbeer’s ‘Huguenots’ (1836) [ • Giacomo Meyerbeer - LES HUGUENOTS (Ma... ], Berlioz’s ‘Troyens’ (1858) [ • Hector Berlioz - LES TROYENS - Récita... ] or Saint-Saëns’s ‘Henry VIII’ (1883) [ • Camille Saint-Saens - HENRY VIII - Ov... ], a work in which every bar has the atmosphere of the period. Although set in Italy during the reign of Titus, there is little of the historical realism one expects from French opera, while the characters and situations are cardboard—surprising, since librettist Joseph Méry also wrote Verdi’s psychologically complex ‘Don Carlos’ (1867) [ • Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlos ]. • While there are many beautiful or imaginatively instrumented passages, too many of the scenes resemble the classics of the French repertoire. Act II, in which the heroine is alone in a wasteland with a wicked baritone, is based on ‘Robert’; the religious themes and prayer scene recalls Donizetti’s ‘Martyrs’ (1840) [ • Gaetano Donizetti - LES MARTYRS - Ove... ]; while the eruption of Vesuvius recalls Auber’s ‘Muette de Portici’ (1828) [ • D.F.E. Auber - La muette de Portici ], in which the same volcano explodes at the end. • ‘The score,’ as Berlioz wrote at the time of its premiere, ‘contains a host of beautiful things. The situations lack novelty, perhaps, but can one still find novel situations today?’ • No. 1 – C – Romance et quatuor: ‘Dans une retraite profonde’ • Two Christians, Lilia and Hélios, are brought before the pagan princess Olympia and her brother the proconsul Nicanor. The crowd want them to be put to death, but Olympia is intrigued by their love and faith. • Lilia: Véronique Gens • Olympia: Karine Deshayes • Hélios: Edgaras Montvidas • Nicanor: Nicolas Courjal • Conductor: Hervé Niquet • Brussels Philharmonic • Brussels, 2014
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