Issé (opera)
| Opera dates | |
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| Title: | Issé |
Title page of the score, Paris 1697 |
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| Shape: | “ Pastorale heroïque” in a prologue and three or five acts |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | André Cardinal Destouches |
| Libretto : | Antoine Houdar de la Motte |
| Literary source: | Ovid : Metamorphoses |
| Premiere: | 1) December 17, 1697 2) October 14, 1708 |
| Place of premiere: | 1) Trianon Castle 2) Paris Opera , Palais Royal |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ¾ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Mythical time |
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prolog
action
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Issé is a pastoral opera (original name: "Pastorale heroïque") in a prologue and three (later five) acts by André Cardinal Destouches (music) with a libretto by Antoine Houdar de la Motte . After a concert performance in Fontainebleau on October 7, 1697 , it had its scenic premiere on December 17 of the same year in Trianon Castle and was performed at the Paris Opera on December 30 . A five-act second version premiered there on October 14, 1708.
Plot of the five-act second version
prolog
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The garden of the hesperides; Trees with golden apples; in the background a fire-breathing dragon
Scene 1. The Hesperides extol their quiet and safe life in their garden. The dragon protects you and your treasures from human access. Even Cupid has not allowed here.
Scene 2. Suddenly Hercule enters the garden and kills the dragon. However, he did not come to enslave or rob the Hesperides, but to make the fruits of the garden available to the whole world and thereby bring peace to the people.
Scene 3. Hercules father Jupiter appears, invites his son to enjoy his well-deserved rest, and invites the races of men to the garden.
Scene 4. The people pour in and celebrate. Jupiter calls in Apollo and the other gods to attend the event.
first act
A village
Scene 1. Apollon is disappointed in love after being rejected by Daphne .
Scene 2. He tells his friend Pan that he is now interested in the nymph Issé. Since he wants to win this for himself without divine help, he disguised himself as a shepherd Philémon. The two hide when they notice Issé.
Scene 3. Issé feels helpless in the face of new feelings of love, which she tries to keep secret from the outside world.
Scene 4. Issé's sister Doris advises her to enjoy love. She is happy that the shepherd Hilas has finally managed to awaken Issé's passion. However, she is afraid of losing her peace of mind.
Scene 5. Hilas appears with a group of Nereids and Diana's nymphs , led by Amor , to introduce them to his beloved Issé. He and his entourage urge the nymph to give in to his wooing and savor his love. Issé hesitates.
Second act
The Palace of Issés and its gardens
Scene 1. Issé continues to try to keep love away from him. When Doris points out the approaching Philémon, she would like to avoid an encounter.
Scene 2. Apollo / Philémon vigorously advertises Issé and asks her about her feelings for Hilas. Issé denies reciprocating his love, and then has trouble fending off Apollo.
Scene 3. Meanwhile, Pan tries to find Doris. She is also cautious. Pan explains to her that love is just a game for him. This is preferable to a love fire that is difficult to extinguish.
Scene 4. Shepherds praise easy love without pain.
Third act
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The forest of Dodone
Scene 1. Apollon and Pan consider how Issé can be retuned. You decide to reveal the divine will through the oracle.
Scene 2. Hilas lets his pain run wild in the wilderness of the forest.
Scene 3. The arrival of Issé and Doris intensifies his suffering, especially since they continue to reject him, blame Amor for his feelings and reject any responsibility for them.
Scene 4. Pan courted Doris again. At first she rejects this avowedly faithless lover, but eventually he persuades her to have a little romance.
Scene 5. The priests of Dodone question the oracle about Issé's love fate. It proclaims that Issé should be inflamed by the strongest emotions and that Apollon desires her love. Issé is horrified.
Scene 6. A nymph advises Issé to give in to Apollon's wishes and enjoy his love.
Fourth act
A grotto
Scene 1. Issé laments her fate in a lonely cave. She would rather have endured God's wrath than his love. An echo and sweet melodies confuse them.
Scene 2. Le Sommeil, sleep, appears accompanied by dreams, zephyrs and nymphs and lets Issé fall asleep . In her dreams she should see Apollo in all his splendor.
Scene 3. Hilas has also been driven into the solitude of the cave. When he discovers Issé sleeping, he looks at her in silence for a while. However, she wakes up and thinks about her dream in which she had entered into a love affair with the god Apollon, although her feelings are actually Philémon. Hilas realizes that he cannot take on a divine rival and withdraws.
Scene 4. Pan tells Issé that Philémon is afraid she will leave him because of the oracle. She rushes off to convince her lover otherwise.
Fifth act
Lonely area
Scene 1. Doris envies the birds their ability to love without jealousy.
Scene 2. She thinks Pan has already turned away from her and turned to another love object. Both recognize that they have different goals in love and want to look for other partners.
Scene 3. Philémon pretends to be jealous of Apollo. However, Issé assures him that she only loves him. To convince him, she calls Apollon over. She immediately regrets this because she fears that God might punish her beloved.
The scene turns into a magnificent palace
Issé begs Philémon to flee from the wrath of Apollo. But he calms her down and finally reveals himself to her. Both profess their mutual love.
Scene 4. People from all over the world cheer the couple and wish them lifelong happiness.
layout
The prologue has a warlike character due to the "war noise" ("Bruit de guerre") and the choir "Battez tambours". According to the preliminary remark in the libretto, it is to be understood allegorically as a direct homage to King Louis XIV : The garden of the Hesperides represents abundance. The dragon that defends the entrance to it is a symbol of the war that is bringing trade to a standstill keep the people away. Hercule made the garden accessible to everyone by defeating the dragon. He is an exact image of the king who has so often won to be able to end the war and bring his peoples and neighbors the wealth they long for.
The first act, on the other hand, has a pastoral effect. There is shepherd music with oboes here.
The tragic-dramatic character of the third and fourth acts is reinforced by large intervals and chromatics. An example of this is Hilas' aria "Sombre déserts". A slow march initiates the oracle scene that follows. The high priest's aria "Arbres sacrés" and the prelude dedicated to him are also solemn . In the second version of the opera, the oracle “Issé doit s'enflammer” is accompanied by orchestral tremolos.
Chromatic also characterizes Issé's aria “Funeste amour” at the beginning of the fourth act, which is accompanied by two concert recorders. In the middle part there is also a “flûte allemande”. These instruments are used in different combinations to depict Issé's change of mood. The following choir of the sleeping spirits “Belle Issé” is a three-part a cappella movement.
Doris' bird aria “Chantez oiseaux” in the fifth act is a dialogue of the voice with the flutes and the violin. In the following duet by Doris and Pan, the two vocal parts run independently of each other to emphasize the disagreement between the two.
orchestra
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : two piccolo flutes , two flutes , two oboes , two bassoons
- Brass : two trumpets
- Timpani , drum
- Strings
- Basso continuo
Music numbers
In the piano reduction by Hector Salomon (Paris 1880) the following musical numbers are given:
- Overture
prolog
- Solo and choir (Hesperides): "Nous jouissons ici"
- Choir: "Que de nos plus doux chants"
- Air pour les Hesperides (ballet)
- Bruit de Guerre
- Choir (Hesperides): “Dieux! Quel succès! "
- Aria (Hercule): "Craignez-vous que mon bras"
- Air pour la descente de Jupiter
- Aria (Jupiter): "Que ton bras se repose"
- Choir: "Allons, allons, accourons tous"
- Premier air pour les peuples (ballet)
- Premier et deuxième menuet
- Aria (first hesperide): "Que ces lieux sont d'heureux asiles!"
- Deuxième air pour les peuples (ballet)
- Prelude and Aria (first hesperid): "Beaux lieux!"
- Air de trompettes
- Choir: "Charmants hautbois, douces musettes"
- Aria (Jupiter): "Alcide, ce grand jour"
- Entr'acte
first act
- Aria (Philémon): "Quand on a souffert"
- Duet (Philémon, Pan): "A qui vous plaiguez-vous"
- Aria (Issé): "Heureuse paix"
- Duet (Doris, Issé): "J'aime à vous voir"
- Aria (Doris): "Quand un doux penchant"
- Marche
- Aria (Hilas): "Nymphes, jugez ici"
- Choir: "Aimez, aimez"
- Deuxième Air (ballet)
- Choir (shepherd): "Les doux plaisirs"
- Passe-pied (ballet)
- Recitative (Hilas, Issé): "Sans succès, belle Issé"
- Choir: "Aimez, aimez"
- Entr'acte
Second act
- Aria and recitative (Issé, Doris, Philémon): "Amour, laisse mon cœur"
- Duet (Pan, Doris): "Ne songez point à rn'éviter"
- Marche
- Choir: "Changeons toujours dans nos amours"
- Premier Air (ballet)
- Schäfer: "Formez les plus doux nœuds"
- Choir: "Formez les plus doux nœuds"
- Deuxième Air (ballet)
- Jig (ballet)
- Aria (Doris): "Des oiseaux de ces lieux charmants"
- Premier Rigaudon
- Deuxième Rigaudon
Third act
- Duet (Philémon, Pan): "La Nymphe esl sensible à mes vœux"
- Aria (Pan): "Sombres déserts"
- Recitative (Hilas, Issé): "Cruelle, vous souffrez ici"
- Duet (Pan, Doris): “Doris. je vous cherche en tous lieux "
- Marche
- Aria (high priest): "Ministres révérés"
- Choir: "Commençons nos mystères"
- Aria (high priest): "Arbres sacrés"
- Prelude for the Grand Pretre
- Arie (high priest): "Mais déjà dans chaque branche"
- Choir: "Chantons, chantons Issé"
- Premier Air pour les Faunes (Ballet)
- Aria (a dryad): "Ici les tendres oiseaux"
- Premier Passepied (Ballet)
- Deuxième Passepied (Ballet)
- Entr'acte. Air de trompettes
Fourth act
- Aria (Issé): "Funeste amour"
- Choir and Issé: "Belle Issé"
- Sarabande
- Issé: "C'en est fait"
- Aria (le Sommeil): "Songes, pour Apollon"
- Aria (Hilas): “Que vois-je! c'est Issé. "
- Duet (Issé, Hilas): "Qu'ai-je pensé?"
- Recitative (Pan. Issé): "Philémon, belle Issé"
- Entr'acte
Fifth act
- Aria (Doris): "Chantez oiseaux"
- Duet (Pan, Doris): "Quel sujet a conduit Doris"
- Aria (Pan): "Heureuse mille fois"
- Duet (Issé, Philémon): “Non. je ne puis me rassurer "
- (Apollon, Issé, les Heures)
- Marche des Nations
- Choir: "Que tes plaisirs sont doux!"
- Air pour les Européens (ballet)
- Menuet
- Couplet (a European): “Ah! que d'attraits "
- Choir: "Ah! que d'attraits "
- Air des Américains (ballet)
- Couplet (an American): "Peut-on jamais braver l'amour"
- Air pour les Egyptiens (ballet)
- Air des Chinois (ballet)
- Choir: "Que tes plaisirs sont doux!"
Work history
The libretto for André Cardinal Destouchess' opera Issé is by Antoine Houdar de la Motte . It is based on a section from the 6th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses , as Houdar de la Motte stated at the beginning of the libretto: “Ut Pastor Macareïda luserit Issen. Ex Met. Lib. 6 ". It was the first opera by the then 25-year-old composer. The work was first performed in concert on October 7, 1697, without a prologue and without ballets in the Salle de la Belle-Cheminée in Fontainebleau . The musical direction was Antoine Grimaldi. It sang Louis Gaulard Dumesny (Apollon), Jean Dun "père" (Pan), Gabriel-Vincent Thevenard (Hila), Marthe Le Rochois (Issé), Françoise "Fanchon" Moreau (Doris), Antoine Boutelou (Shepherd, Le Sommeil and Oracle) and Charles Hardouin (high priest).
King Louis XIV liked the performance so much that he had it supplemented with a prologue and dances so that it could be performed as part of the festivities for the wedding of Duke Louis de Bourgogne , his eldest grandson, with Maria Adelaide of Savoy , who was only twelve years old . The wedding took place on December 7, 1697, and the opera was performed in Trianon Castle on December 17 . Marie-Louise-Antoinette Desmâtins (first Hesperide), Charles Hardouin (Hercule) and Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard (Jupiter) sang in the prologue. The rest of the cast remained unchanged. After the first performance, Destouches received a bag with 200 Louis d'or from the king . According to Évrard Titon du Tillet, King Destouches assured him that no music since Lully (who had died 10 years earlier) had given him as much pleasure as this.
Two weeks later, on December 30, 1697, the work was sent to the Paris Opera with the same cast . The sun on the set alone required 1,300 candles. Issé developed into Destouche's most successful opera, and the libretto also received applause, despite its rather uninteresting subject. However, the treatment of the couple Doris and Pan was criticized. The type of instrumentation with its careful treatment of the wind instruments had an impact up to the time of Jean-Philippe Rameau .
In 1708 the work was played again at the Paris Opera in a new version expanded to five acts. The dances became even more important and the choirs expanded. Some of the arias have been stylistically revised and given more ornamentation, analogous to the contemporary cantata style. In addition, Destouches increased the expressiveness of the music through more dissonant sounds and additional motifs. This version was there in the years 1719, 1721, 1733, 1734, 1741, 1742, 1749 and the last time for a single performance on December 23, 1756 and 1773 in Versailles for the wedding of the Count of Artois, later King Charles X , again recorded. During this time almost all of the major singers and dancers of the Opéra performed in Issé . In 1749 Madame de Pompadour played the title role at the Théâtre des Petits Cabinets.
There were further productions in Lyon in 1709, in The Hague in 1710 and in Brussels in 1711. An arrangement by Georg Caspar Schürmann was shown in Wolfenbüttel in 1710 under the title Issé or Die vergnügende Liebe . In addition, a total of four parody versions were created between 1719 and 1741.
The new choir community Vaterstetten and the baroque ensemble “Sans-Souci” under Konstantin Köppelmann presented the opera in concert on July 25, 2010 in the Vaterstetten town hall .
In October 2018 Issé was shown at the Royal Versailles Opera , broadcast on the radio and then released on CD. The Ensemble Les Surprises and the Chœur des chantres du Center de Musique Baroque de Versailles performed under the direction of Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas on the basis of a score published in 1724 in which the moment of Apollo's Revelation was redesigned - instead of “Ah! Je suis Apollon "the text is now" Ah! c'est trop, belle Issé, voyez couler des larmes ”.
Recordings
- 13-15 October 2018 - Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas (conductor), Les Surprises, Chœur des chantres du Center de Musique Baroque de Versailles.
Mathias Vidal (Apollon), Mathieu Lécroat (Jupiter and Pan), Thomas Dolié (Hilas), Judith Van Wanroij (Issé), Chantal Santon (Doris), Stephen Collardelle (shepherd, Le Sommeil and oracle), Etienne Bazola (Hercule and high priest ), Eugénie Lefebvre (first hesperid, nymph and dryad).
Recording from the Royal Opera Versailles .
Editions Ambronay.
Digital copies
- Issé : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Score, Paris 1697. Digitized by Gallica
- Score, Paris 1708. Digitized by Gallica
- Score, Paris 1724. Digitized by Gallica
- Libretto (French), Paris 1697/1703. Digitized from the Library of Congress
- Libretto (French), Paris 1708. Digitized from the Library of Congress
- Piano reduction by Hector Salomon, Paris 1880. Digitized in the Internet Archive . Published in the series Chefs-d'œuvre classiques de l'opéra français
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Scene III: 1 is missing in the CD recording from 2018.
- ↑ The aria "Sombres déserts" is assigned to Hilas in the libretto and in the score of 1724.
- ↑ In Ovid's translation by Reinhart Suchier (1862) it says: “There is also Phoibos in peasant form, here with the shell of the leu, there with the plumage of the hawk; How he delights as a shepherd the daughter of Makareus, Isse. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Herbert Schneider : Issé. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 1: Works. Abbatini - Donizetti. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-492-02411-4 , pp. 722-723.
- ↑ a b c d Spire Pitou: The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers - Genesis and Glory, 1661-1715. Greenwood Press: Westport / London 1983 ISBN 0-313-21420-4 .
- ^ Foreword to the libretto.
- ↑ Amanda Holden (Ed.): The Viking Opera Guide. Viking, London / New York 1993, ISBN 0-670-81292-7 , p. 262.
- ^ A b c d Françoise Escande, Charles Johnston (trans.): Work information. In: Supplement to the CD by Éditions Ambronay, pp. 18–21.
- ↑ October 7, 1697: "Issé". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia .
- ↑ December 17, 1697: "Issé". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia .
- ↑ December 30, 1697: "Issé". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia .
- ^ Dorothea Schröder: Contemporary history on the opera stage. Baroque music theater in Hamburg in the service of politics and diplomacy (1690–1745). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-27900-0 , p. 243, footnote 26.
- ↑ a b Caroline Wood: Issé. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
- ^ André Cardinal Destouches, Issé - Pastorale héroique. Information on the performance in Vaterstetten 2010 on the website of the Vaterstetten choir community.
- ↑ 14.10.2018 - André Cardinal Destouches, "Issé" in Versailles in the WDR 3 program , accessed on April 18, 2020.
- ^ Supplement to the CD of the Éditions Ambronay.