Roland (Piccinni)
| Opera dates | |
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| Title: | Roland |
Title page of the libretto, Paris 1778 |
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| Shape: | Tragédie lyrique in three acts (five images) |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Niccolò Piccinni |
| Libretto : | Jean-François Marmontel |
| Literary source: |
Philippe Quinault : Roland Ludovico Ariosto : Orlando furioso |
| Premiere: | January 27, 1778 |
| Place of premiere: | Palais Royal of the Paris Opera |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Cathay and the surrounding area in the 8th century, saga world |
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Roland is a tragedy lyrique in three acts (five images) by Niccolò Piccinni (music) with a libretto by Jean-François Marmontel based on Philippe Quinault's libretto for Lully's opera Roland , which in turn is based on the verse epic Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto . The premiere took place on January 27, 1778 in the Palais Royal of the Paris Opera .
action
The opera is about the love of the paladin Roland for Queen Angélique, who fell in love with the common soldier Médor. In the first two acts, Angélique's inner conflict between the possible honorable relationship with Roland and her improper love for Médor is the main theme. After deciding on Médor, she resorted to a ruse to avoid the expected wrath of Roland and secretly leave the country with Médor. The third act shows Roland's reaction to this. After learning of Angélique's betrayal at a shepherd's wedding, he goes mad with pain. The fairy Logistille (a dea ex machina ) magically heals him from his frenzy, so that he can return to his duties in defending the fatherland.
The scene division of the following table of contents corresponds to the libretto published in Toulouse in 1778. The edition published in Paris that same year is somewhat shortened in comparison.
first act
A village
Scene 1. Angélique, Queen of Cathay, has to choose between fame and love in the shape of two men. The famous paladin Roland adores her ardently, but she herself loves the pagan soldier Médor, whom she nursed to health after being wounded on the battlefield. On the advice of her confidante Thémire, Angélique decides to give up her love for Médor, for which she feels shame (Angélique: "Oui, je le dois, je suis pure"). The two withdraw when they see Médor approaching.
Scene 2. Médor suffers deeply because of his improper and therefore hopeless love for Angélique (Médor: “Je la verrai”).
Scene 3. Médor envies Roland his success. Angélique comforts him with the fact that Roland is absent most of the time and she doesn't even miss him. Nevertheless, she tells Médor that she has to part with him and that he should leave as soon as possible. Médor is heartbroken. He cannot imagine life without her (Duet Angélique / Médor: “Soyez heureux loin d'elle”).
Scene 4. As soon as Médor left, Angélique regrets her decision (Angélique: “Non, rien n'égale mon malheur”). She wants to send Thémire behind so that she can fetch him back (Angélique: “Je renonce à ce que j'aime”).
Scene 5. An islander appears with his oriental entourage and, on behalf of Roland, presents Angélique with a valuable bracelet as a symbol of his love. The islanders dance.
Second act
The fountain of love in the middle of a forest
Scene 1. Ecstatic lovers dance to sing about the fountain of love (choir: “Onde echanteresse” or “Source enchanteresse”). A jealous lover tries to drink from the well of hate, but is then persuaded by other lovers to drink from the well of love instead.
Scene 2. In order to forget her love for Médor, Angélique searches with Thémire for the well of hatred enchanted by Merlin . This is located in the forest next to the fountain of love. Angélique realizes that she would rather die than turn her love for Médor into hate. When Roland shows up, she puts a magic ring in her mouth that makes her invisible.
Scene 3. Observed by the invisible Angélique, Roland complains to Thémire about her ingratitude and cruelty. Because of her, he gave up everything and even let King Charles down in the defense of Paris against the pagans (Roland: “Je me reconnois, je respire”).
Scene 4. After Roland has sadly withdrawn, Angélique becomes visible again. She tells Thémire that Roland cannot win her heart. All her thoughts are with Médor (Angélique: “C'est l'Amour qui prend soin”).
Scene 5. Then Médor arrives too - deeply desperate after being rejected by Angélique, he wants to put an end to his life in the loneliness. Angélique sends Thémire away and makes herself invisible again.
Scene 6. When Médor draws his sword to stab himself, Angélique intervenes and assures him how much he means to her (Médor: “Je vivrai, si c'est votre envie”). In the future he should rule as her husband and king at her side. But since Roland is still around, she asks him to withdraw for the time being.
Scene 7. Angélique knows that she must fear Roland's wrath. That gives her the right to deceive him.
Scene 8. Roland returns and finally meets Angélique. In response to his accusations and declarations of love, she replies that she is afraid of him and therefore has to avoid him. Her people also expect her return (duet: “Mon cœur, libre encore, veut fuir un vainqueur”).
Sea port
Scene 9. Chinese sailors urge the happy lovers to flee the country from Roland's jealousy. The winds are just favorable.
Scene 10. When Médor appears with Thémire, the sailors pay homage to him as the new king. Médor compares his regained love for Angélique with being saved from a shipwreck (Médor: “L'amour m'a sauvé du naufrage”). Everyone is dancing.
Scene 11. Angélique and Médor leave together (duet: “Allons dans une paix profonde”).
Third act
Grotto in a bocage
Scene 1. Roland thinks Angélique has chosen him. He indulges in the greatest delights of love and can hardly wait for her next rendezvous at the fountain of love. His friend Astolfe reminds him that the empire urgently needs his help in defending against the barbarians. But Roland cannot turn his mind away from Angélique. Astolfe goes away.
Scene 2. While Roland sings about his love (Roland: “Ah j'attendrai longtemps”), he discovers a love poem on the wall of the grotto that Angélique and Médor have scratched there. Since he has never heard the name Médor, he initially believes that she herself gave him this nickname. But then he reads more verses in a different handwriting, which arouse doubts. At that moment, rural music can be heard in the distance: shepherds celebrate the upcoming wedding of Coridon and Bélise. Roland withdraws.
Scene 3. The shepherds celebrate, and Coridon and Bélise swear everlasting love.
Scene 4. Roland returns to ask the shepherds about Angélique. Coridon and Bélise compare their own love to that of Angélique and Médor. Roland now learns that the two have left the country, but the whole area, the trees, rocks and the cave, still testify to their love.
Scene 5. Bélise's father Tersandre reports that Angélique and Médor have fled out of concern for their safety. Angélique has left Tersandre with a bracelet as a souvenir, which Roland immediately recognizes as his gift. It's too much for him. When the shepherds cheer the love of Angélique and Médor, he angrily jumps up. The shepherds flee frightened.
Scene 6. Unable to process this news, Roland goes mad (Roland: “Je suis trahi, ciel” - “Ah! Je suis descendu dans la nuit du tombeau”). He rages, destroys the writing on the grotto wall and tears up trees and rocks. After all, he thinks he is seeing a fury to whom he must show “a terrible example of love torment”.
Scene 7. A symphony announces the arrival of the fairy Logistille, who appears on a carriage and brings Roland back to his senses.
A camp
Scene 8. Logistille and French nobles ask Roland to take up arms in order to gain new fame. Roland takes his sword and armor, joins the gun cries and renounces confusion of love. The opera ends with a military march.
layout
libretto
Marmontel based his libretti on the texts of Pietro Metastasio . "Isometric" text stanzas have a special meaning for him as the basis for the "chants périodiques" popular with the Italian party.
In his editing of Quinault's Roland libretto, he cut the plot down to the essentials, removed subplots and shortened the divertissements. He also removed the prologue (an homage to Louis XIV ) and reduced the number of acts from five to three. However, the cuts also resulted in logical breaks. For example, it is not clear why Roland is so sure at the beginning of the third act that Angélique will come to the agreed rendezvous. Even his miraculous healing through the fairy logistille is no longer sufficiently motivated.
By keeping large parts of the original verse, Marmontel created a mixture of old and new verses.
music
Piccinni did not divide his opera into musical numbers, but based himself on the sequence of scenes in the libretto. Essentially, Roland consists of long scenes in which the three main characters musically reveal their feelings.
Roland combines French and Italian elements in text and music. The arias are largely based on the Italian scheme. They are characterized by "periodic melody, motivic stringency and unity of affect". The short "airs" of the title role and the type of declamation, on the other hand, refer to French traditions. However, the integration of the two styles is not as advanced as in Piccini's later works.
Piccini's music is of a higher quality than the libretto, which at times seems dull and incoherent. Knaur's opera guide called it a “masterpiece of the finest art of characterization.” However, unlike Gluck's Iphigénie operas, it lacks a “humanistic message” and “musical unity and potency”.
The aria forms vary. There are well-composed arias such as Angélique's performance aria “Oui, je le dois, je suis pure” (first act, scene 1), Médor's “Je vivrai, si c'est votre envie” (second act, scene 6) and Roland's “Ah j'attendrai longtemps ”(third act, scene 2), two-part arias in which the same text is set to music twice, and da capo arias such as Médor's“ Je la verrai ”(first act, scene 2) or Angélique's“ C 'est l'Amour qui prend soin ”(second act, scene 4).
The most important scene of the opera is the second scene of the third act, in which Roland in the forest can hardly wait for his agreed meeting with Angélique. The musical sequence of recitative, arioso and air (F major to G minor) is closely based on the plot. Every mention of Médor is accompanied by string tremolos . The scene ends with an anger aria ("Je me reconnois, je respire") in ABA form. This scene contains the opera's only extended arioso. Another important scene from Roland is his insane monologue “Je suis trahi, ciel” - “Ah! je suis descendu dans la nuit du tombeau ”(third act, scene 6). The latter is in F minor and modulates up to B flat and E flat minor.
Médor's virtuoso heroic aria “L'amour m'a sauvé du naufrage” (second act, scene 10), in which he compares his feelings with being rescued from a shipwreck, could also be found in an opera seria based on a text Metastasios by them Piccinni had already set quite a few to music.
The duet Angélique / Médor “Soyez heureux loin d'elle” (first act, scene 3, Largo cantabile - Allegro vivace) is a forerunner of the later series of cavatine and cabaletta.
The opening chorus of the second act "Onde echanteresse" was considered to be a model of the classicistic preferences of the Piccinnists because of its "perfectly square period". The structure of the shepherd's music (“musique champêtre”) in the third act, on the other hand, is based on Lully's model.
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : two flutes (also piccolo ), two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons
- Brass : two horns , two trumpets , trombone
- Timpani , percussion : cymbals , tambourine
- Strings : violin 1, violin 2, violas , cellos , double basses
Work history
The Italian composer Niccolò Piccinni had accepted an offer from the French court in 1776 to move to Paris. He was supposed to support the Italian party of the Neapolitan Ambassador Marquis Domenico Caracciolo and the Abbé Ferdinando Giuliani against the French faction of Gluck's supporters.
Piccini's first French opera work for the Académie Royale in Paris was Roland, for whom Jean-François Marmontel adapted an old libretto by Philippe Quinault , which was set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1685 (→ Roland ). It was intended as a counterpoint to Gluck's opera Armide . Gluck himself might also have plans for a Roland opera at the time, which he gave up when he heard of Piccini's commission.
Since Piccinni was barely able to speak French, he worked closely on the composition with Marmontel, from whom he also received language lessons. Even before the work was completed, the so-called Piccinnist dispute broke out over the priority of Italian or French opera. Marmontel sided with Piccini and Italian music with his Essai sur les révolutions de la musique en France from 1777. Piccinni finished the composition in June 1777, but the performance was delayed for a few months.
Henri Larrivée (Roland), Rosalie Levafsseur (Angélique), Lebourgeois (Thémire), Joseph Legros (Médor), Tirot (Astolfe), Étienne Lainez (Coridon), Anne sang at the premiere on January 27, 1778 in the Palais Royal of the Paris Opera -Marie-Jeanne Gavaudan “l'aînée” (Bélise), Jean-Pierre Moreau (Tersandre), Nicolas Gélin (Un insulaire) and Châteauvieux (Logistille). The ballet was choreographed by Jean Georges Noverre .
Piccinni was not very optimistic because of the disputes in Paris. He was one of Gluck's admirers and wanted to withdraw from the opera and secretly leave the city. Nevertheless, his opera was a great success, which was not affected by the attacks of the "Gluckists" and protests by the participants - Gluck's Armide, on the other hand, was initially received critically. In addition to the monologue of the title character in the third act, the critics praised Roland above all for the arias and duets. They also noted positively that Marmontel had distributed the song numbers more sensibly compared to Quinault's original and that the plot became more stringent. There were more than 20 performances in the first year, 18 in 1779, and 21 in 1780. Roland stayed at the Paris Opera until 1793. There were only a few productions outside of France, including 1779 in Copenhagen (partial concert performance), 1781 in Stockholm (Swedish translation by Adolf Fredrik Ristell, music version by Lars Lalin), Kassel (here also 1784) and Lille and in 1782 in Liège. A German version of the text by David August von Apell was published in Göttingen in 1802.
As with Lully's predecessor opera, Piccinnis Roland also created several parodies. Dorvigny's La rage d'amour appeared at the Comédie-Italienne after just two months . In 1778 Jean-Étienne Despréaux ' Romans was given in Marly and in 1783 in Stockholm (also in Gothenburg in 1784) the comedy Donnerpamp by Carl Israel Hallman (text), Carl Stenborg and Johan David Zander (music).
Recordings
- July 2000 (live from Martina Franca; revision by Giuseppe Pastore and Luisa Cosi): David Golup (conductor), Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, Bratislava Sluk Chamber Chorus. Luca Grassi (Roland), Alla Simoni (Angélique), Sara Allegretta (Thémire), Stefania Donzelli (Médor), Kim Hyung-Dong (Astolfe), Daniele Gaspari (Coridon and Un insulaire), Eléna Lopéz (Bélise), Giacomo Rocchetti ( Tersandre), Lei Ma (Logistille). Dynamic Klassic Center 367 1-3 (3 CD).
Web links
- Roland : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Score, Paris 1778. Digitized by Gallica
- Libretto (French), Paris 1778. Digitized at Google Books
- Libretto (French), Toulouse 1778. Digitized at Google Books
- David August von Apell : Roland: a heroic opera. Libretto (German), Göttingen 1802. Digitized at Google Books
- Libretto (Italian / French) as full text (PDF) on dicoseunpo.it
Remarks
- ↑ a b c d is missing in the Paris text edition from 1778.
- ↑ In the Paris text edition from 1778 there is a ballet scene (“Entrée d'Amans heurux”) in which a jealous lover tries to drink from the well of hatred, but is then convinced by other lovers to do so instead to drink from the one of love.
- ↑ In Quinault's original, Roland already despairs at this point over having lost sight of Angélique.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Herbert Schneider , Reinhard Wiesend (ed.): The opera in the 18th century (= manual of the musical genres. Volume 12). Laaber, 2001, ISBN 3-89007-135-X , pp. 202-203.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Elisabeth Schmierer : Roland. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 4: Works. Massine - Piccinni. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-492-02414-9 , pp. 780-782.
- ↑ a b c d Gerhart von Westerman , Karl Schumann: Knaurs Opernführer. Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur Nachf., Munich 1957, 1969, ISBN 3-426-07216-5 , pp. 67-68.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Mary Hunter: Roland (ii). In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
- ↑ Roland. In: Opera Manager , accessed March 24, 2017.
- ↑ January 27, 1778: "Roland". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
- ^ Horst Seeger : The great lexicon of the opera. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1978. Special edition for Pawlak, Herrsching 1985, p. 472.
- ^ Niccolò Piccinni. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , Volume 20, p. 12913.