La dame blanche
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The white lady |
| Original title: | La dame blanche |
Apparition of the White Lady |
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| Shape: | Opéra-comique |
| Music: | François-Adrien Boieldieu |
| Libretto : | Eugène Scribe |
| Literary source: | Walter Scott |
| Premiere: | December 10, 1825 |
| Place of premiere: | Paris, Opéra-Comique |
| Playing time: | about three hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Avenel Well and Castle in Scotland, 1759 |
| people | |
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La dame blanche (German: The White Lady ) is an opera in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834). It was premiered on December 10, 1825 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and is considered one of the most important French operas and major work of the Opéra-comique genre .
action
Preliminary remark
The libretto is by Eugène Scribe , who drew his inspiration from five novels by the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott , including the novellas The Monastery and Guy Mannering .
La dame blanche was entirely committed to the restoration of the aristocracy in post-revolutionary and post-Napoleonic France. At the end of the piece, the restoration of the old order and ownership is celebrated. Anna and Gaveston represent the good and the bad alternative in dealing with aristocratic property. The idyllic landscape of rural life reflects the trend of the petit-bourgeois as the equivalent of Viennese Biedermeier .
first act
In front of the Dicksons leasehold
The young officer Georges Brown arrives in the village of Avenel when the tenant Dikson and his wife Jenny are preparing to baptize their son. Since the judge of the peace appointed as godfather is ill, they ask George to take over the godparenthood. At the feast, the tenant's wife Jenny sings the ballad of the white woman who is supposed to haunt the castle and who reminds Brown of some of the events of his youth. The tenant claims not only to have seen the white woman, but also to have received a bag of gold from her. He has vowed to obey her call at all times, but is embarrassed when he now mysteriously comes across a letter from her that reminds him of his vows and calls to the lock. This adventurous invitation lures the officer, who agrees to take the place of the fearful tenant and answer the call of the White Lady.
Second act
Room in the castle of Count Avenel
The castle caretaker Gaveston wants to auction the old castle and demands documents from Anna, which the last mistress of Avenel gave her in safekeeping on her death bed. Anna refuses them to him. In place of the tenant Dickson, Georg Brown now reports as a guest. Old Marguerite is struck by his resemblance to the Avenels. Gaveston is reluctant to give him hospitality. During the night, Georges appears the ghost of the White Lady. It's Gaveston's ward Anna. She asks him to come to the castle auction and do whatever he is told to do. He promises, because the figure tells him of his wounding on the battlefield and that a strange girl took care of him there. Anna herself is this carer, and Brown fell in love with her even then. The next morning, all the villagers come to the auction to prevent the old ancestral castle from falling into Gaveston's hands. Although he has no money, Georg Brown outbids the castle steward on the secret command of the White Lady.
Third act
Ancestral hall of the castle
The new lord of the castle is celebrated as a savior by the people of the village. Songs from her mouth remind him of his youth and he now recognizes Marguerite as his nanny. Gaveston appears to claim the purchase price. Threatened with culpability, Brown doubts a happy solution. At the last moment, the White Lady comes to the rescue with the Avenels family treasure. Gaveston tears the veil from her face in anger and recognizes his ward Anna. Georg Brown legitimizes this through the ancestral treasure of the Avenels and the documents entrusted to it as the real offspring of the last lord of the castle. While Gaveston angrily leaves the castle and the area as an unmasked inheritance sneak, Georg Brown extends his hand to the found nurse to make the marriage bond.
music
In his opera Boieldieu processed folklore and lyrical pieces mixed with romantic fantasy by using the musical stylistic devices of the new era. In addition to simple verse songs like in Jenny's ballad about the white woman or Marguerite's sentimental spinning wheel aria, in which the music depicts the movements of the spinning wheel, there are sophisticated ensemble scenes like the finale of act 1, where a thunderstorm is approaching. The music roars stormily in chromatic tones and shifting seventh chords, interspersed with the strokes of lightning from piccolo and the thunder of the kettledrum. In the finale of the second act with the castle auction led by Mac-Irton, the drama is hard to beat. As higher and higher sums are offered, the music increases with irresistible kinetics, followed by an abrupt change of key and effective use of the choir when something unexpected happens. The harp plays an important role in the opera as the accompanist of the White Lady. The woodwinds are used very subtly, while the strings draw on their full technical repertoire. This gives the music an extraordinary color and suppleness and at the same time exudes simple spontaneity and sophistication.
La dame blanche has typical elements of romanticism in its Gothic form, with an exotic Scottish town, a lost heir, a mysterious castle, a hidden treasure and a good spirit. The style of the opera influenced the operas Lucia di Lammermoor , I puritani and La jolie fille de Perth . La dame blanche was one of the first attempts to bring fantasy into opera. She was also the model for works such as Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le diable and Charles Gounod's opera Faust .
The premiere took place on December 10, 1825 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris . It had great success and became the standard work of the operatic repertoire in France and Germany in the 19th century . After the first performance in German in 1826, a parody of the work was also made in Vienna under the title Die Schwarze Frau by Adolf Müller senior (music) and Karl Meisl (libretto). Wilhelm Reuling composed six waltzes based on motifs from the opera.
La dame blanche is rarely rehearsed these days. In France, it was Marc Minkowski newly listed and recorded on CD, but there are also some earlier released on vinyl sound recordings .
The tenor aria by Georges Brown, "Viens, gentille dame", was already a hit in Paris at that time and is still performed most frequently today.
Furnishing
Decoration of the first act
Decoration of the second act
Decoration of the third act
Decoration of the third act
Detail of the decoration of the third act
Jenny costume
Sound carrier
- 1962: Michel Sénéchal (Georges Brown), Françoise Louvay (Anna), Jane Berbié (Jenny), André Doniat (Dickson), Adrien Legros (Gaveston), Geneviève Baudoz (Marguerite) - Orchester symphonique et Choeur de Paris, Pierre Stoll - ( Accord)
- 1964: Nicolai Gedda (Georges Brown), Mimi Aarden (Anna), Sophia Van Sant (Jenny), Guus Hoekman, Erna Spoorenberg , Henk Drissen, Franz Vroons - choir and orchestra from Hilversum Radio, Jean Fournet - (melodrama and opera D ' Oro)
- 1996: Rockwell Blake (Georges Brown), Annick Massis (Anna), Mireille Delunsch (Jenny), Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Dickson), Laurent Naouri (Gaveston), Sylvie Brunet (Marguerite) - Choeur de Radio France and Ensemble Orchestral de Paris , Marc Minkowski - ( EMI )
literature
- Klaus Hortschansky : La Dame Blanche. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Part 1.
- Karin Pendle: Eugène Scribe and French Opéra of the Nineteenth Century. Michigan 1979.
- Ulrich Schreiber : Eugène Scribe and the Opéra Comique. In: Opera guide for advanced learners. Volume 2. 2002.
- Jean-Claude Yon: La Dame, Scribe et l'Opéra-Comique: le début d'un long règne. In: La Dame Blanche. Paris 1997.
Web links
- La dame blanche : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Action by La dame blanche on Opera-Guide landing page due to URL conversion currently not available
- Work data for La dame blanche based on MGG with discography at Operone
Individual evidence
- ↑ The black woman. (No longer available online.) In: des-is-klassisch.at. The association “des is classic”. Association for the maintenance and further development of historical theater practice, May 6, 2011, archived from the original on August 18, 2016 ; accessed on March 30, 2018 (parody in the series “des is klassisch - dik”, premiered in the Gmunden city theater on May 6, 2011).
- ↑ Constantin von Wurzbach : Reuling, Wilhelm . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 25th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1873, pp. 346–350 ( digitized version ).