Les Horaces

Les Horaces (The Horatii) is an operatic tragédie lyrique by Antonio Salieri. The text was by Nicolas-François Guillard after Pierre Corneille's Horace.

Antonio Salieri

The opera was commissioned by the Paris Opera after the success of Salieri's Les Danaïdes with the company.

Performance history

According to different sources, Les Horaces was first performed either at Fontainebleau on 2 November 1786,[1] or at Versailles on 2 December 1786.[2] According to Spire Pitou, however, both dates seem to be errors and "the correct date of the world première of Salieri's Les Horaces is 7 December 1786 at the Royal Academy of Music ...".[3] Whatever the case, it was not well received.[4] The failure of the opera to some extent has been blamed on the lackluster performances of the original performers.[5]

Roles
Cast Voice type Premiere, 2 December 1786[6]
(Conductor: - )
Old Horace bass-baritone Auguste-Athanase (Augustin) Chéron
Young Horace tenor/baritone François Lays
Curiace tenor Étienne Lainez
Camille soprano Antoinette Cécile de Saint-Huberty
A woman of Camille's retinue soprano Adelaïde Gavaudan "cadette"[7]
The High Priest bass-baritone Martin-Joseph Adrien
Valère baritone Claude-Armand Chardin (stage name, "Chardini")
A Roman bass-baritone M. Moreau
An Alban bass-baritone M. Châteaufort
An oracle bass-baritone M. Moreau
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References
  1. the libretto bears such a notation (Pitou, "Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 277)
  2. as reported by Théodore Lajarte in his Bibliothèque musicale du théâtre de l'Opéra (online at Internet Archive), Paris, 1876, I, p. 353
  3. Pitou, "Les Horaces" (Salieri), pp. 277-78
  4. Classy Classical: Antonio Salieri: Truth or Fiction
  5. Antonio Salieri Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine. "Yet -retorts Pitou- the best voices of the company had been cast in this failure..." ("Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 279
  6. According to the original libretto.
  7. According to Spire Pitou (articles: "Gavaudan aînée, Anne-Marie Jeanne", p. 240, and "Les Horaces" (Salieri), p. 278), the role was performed by Adelaïde's elder sister, Anne-Marie Jeanne Gavaudan, aînée.

Sources
  • Original libretto: Les Horaces, Tragédie-Lyrique, en trois actes, mêlée d'intermedes. Représentée devant Leurs Majestés à Fontainebleu, le 2 Novembre 1786, Paris, Ballard, 1786 (a copy online at Gallica - Bibliothèque Nationale de France)
  • Pitou, Spire, 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)
  • Horaces, Les by John A Rice, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
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