Théâtre National de la rue de la Loi

Théâtre de l'Opera 1794–1820

Floor plan and elevation of the theater at the time of construction

The Théâtre National de la rue de la Loi (initially also Théâtre des Arts or the Salle Montansier ) was the home of the Académie royale or Académie imperiale (the Paris Opera ) in the period from 1793 to 1820. The building was in the Rue de Richelieu (from 1793 to 1806 rue de la Loi (street of the right)) on the site of today's Place Louvois in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris.

history

The “National Theater” (Théâtre-National) was designed by the architect Victor Louis from 1792–1793 on behalf of the actress Marguerite Brunet (1730–1820), known by her stage name Mademoiselle Montansier, who ran a Parisian theater. As early as 1777 she had in Versailles in the presence of Louis XVI. opened her first theater, also known as the Théâtre Montansier .

The new theater in Paris opened on April 15, 1793 and had a very large, elegant and comfortable auditorium for 2,300 people. Marguerite Montansier plays novelties here and thus had extraordinary success, which called her envious people onto the scene. At the beginning of the Jacobin Revolutionary Reign of Terror , she was arrested and charged with deliberately opening a theater across from the Bibliothèque Nationale to expose this nation-valuable collection to a fire hazard.

Mademoiselle Montansier

After the arrest of Montansier their theater was by decree of 14 April 1794, the former Académie Royale de Musique provided that on July 27 (9 Thermidor in the second year of the Republican Calendar), the Theater an der Porte Saint-Martin exit that she had played since the Théâtre du Palais-Royal fire in 1781. The building was adapted for the opera ensemble of the Académie by the architect Raymond Brongniart. The first performance of the new Théâtre des Arts took place ten days later, on August 7, 1794.

Auditorium des Théâtre des Arts 1791 to 1793

When she got out of prison after the end of the terror, Montansier sought to have the expropriation of her lost property reversed. Her lawsuit was successful on the 5th Messidor of the third year (June 25, 1795) in so far as she was paid a severance payment of eight million francs in banknotes by decree, which was intended to offset the transfer of her property to the French nation.

On the 3rd Nivôse in the ninth year (December 24, 1800) the French premiere of Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation was planned in this theater , at a time when the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte was on the street due to an explosion that cost many lives , almost been killed. But Bonaparte was not the victim of this attack, and he was greeted in the theater with a standing ovation.

Among other significant achievements of this theater, which changed its official name several times after the change of government, there was the French premiere of an arrangement of Mozart's Magic Flute (1801) and the premiere of the Vestal Virgin by Gaspare Spontini (December 15, 1807). The next world premieres of Spontini's operas, Cortez and Olimpie also took place in this house.

Planned Atonement Chapel at Louvois Square, Paris, around 1830

Fontaine de la Place Louvois

Fontaine de la Place Louvois 2010

The theater operations in this house came to an end on February 13, 1820 at 11 p.m. when the heir to the French throne, the Duke of Berry , was attacked and fatally injured together with his wife Marie Caroline after the performance Died February at 6 a.m. After his death, all performances were canceled, the theater was initially closed and then demolished.

At the scene of the assassination, at the request of King Louis XVIII. the construction of a memorial chapel planned as a monument of atonement. The building was nearing completion when the July Revolution broke out in 1830 and the next change of government took place with it. The unfinished monument was demolished in 1839 and a fountain was erected in its place in 1844 by the architect Louis Visconti on behalf of King Louis-Philippe I.

The area was later planted with trees. Today Louvois square is located here, and nothing reminds of the theater or the murdered Duke of Berry.

World premieres (selection)

Ball in the Opéra, 1800

Étienne-Nicolas Méhul - Horatius Coclès ( Antoine-Vincent Arnault ), Opera 1 act (February 18, 1794, Paris, Opéra)

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry - Denys le tyran, maître d'école à Corinthe (Pierre-Sylvain Maréchal), opera 1 act (23 Aug 1794 Paris, Opéra)

Grétry - La Rosière républicaine ou La Fête de la vertu (Pierre-Sylvain Maréchal), Opera 1 act (September 2, 1794 Paris, Opéra)

Rodolphe Kreutzer - La Journée du 10 août 1792 ou La Chute du dernier tyran (Guillaume Saulnier / Darrieux), Opera 4 acts (10 Aug 1795 Paris, Opéra)

Grétry - Anacréon chez Polycrate (Jean Henry Guy), Opera 3 acts (January 17, 1797 Paris, Grand Opéra)

Méhul - Adrien ( François-Benoît Hoffman after Pietro Metastasio : Adriano in Siria ), Opera 3 acts (June 4, 1799 Paris, Opéra; revised December 26, 1801 Paris)

François-Adrien Boieldieu - Emma ou La Prisonnière ( Étienne de Jouy / Saint-Just / Lonchamps), Opéra comique 1 act (September 12, 1799 Paris, Théâtre Montansier)

R. Kreutzer - Flaminius à Corinthe ( Guilbert de Pixérécourt /L.-T. Lambert), Opera 1 act (27 Feb. 1801 Paris, Opéra) (with Isouard )

R. Kreutzer - Astianax , Opera 3 acts (1801 Paris, Opéra) repeated 46 times

Grétry - Le Casque et les colombes (Nicolas-François Guillard), Opéra-ballet 1 act (7 Nov. 1801 Paris, Opéra)

Charles-Simon Catel - Sémiramis (Philippe Desriaux after Voltaire ), Tragédie lyrique 3 acts (May 4, 1802 Paris, Grand Opéra)

Peter von Winter - Tamerlan (Etienne Morel de Chédeville after Voltaire, L'Orphelin de la Chine), Opera 4 acts (14 Sept. 1802 Paris, Opéra); Version in Vienna 3 acts (April 9, 1805 Burgtheater)

Grétry - Delphis et Mopsa (Jean Henry Guy), Comédie lyrique 2 acts (February 15, 1803 Paris, Opéra)

Luigi Cherubini - Anacréon, ou L'Amour fugitif (CR Mendouze), Opéra-ballet (ballet opera) 2 acts (October 4th, 1803 Paris, Grand Opéra)

Nicolas Dalayrac - Le Pavillon du calife ou Almanzor et Zobéide (E. Morel de Chédeville / J.-B.-D. Després / J.-M. Deschamps), Opera 2 acts (April 20, 1804 Paris, Opéra)

P. v. Winter - Castor et Pollux (P.-J. Bernard / Morel de Chédeville), Opera 5 acts (19 Aug 1806 Paris, Opéra)

Henri-Bernard Dabadie as Telasco in Spontinis Cortez

Gaspare Spontini - La vestale ( Étienne de Jouy after JJ Winckelmann , Monumenti antichi inediti, 1767), Tragédie lyrique 3 acts (1805; 15 Dec. 1807 Paris, Grand Opéra)
Spontini - Fernand Cortez ou La Conquête de Mexique (Étienne de Jouy / Joseph-Alphonse d'Esménard based on a tragedy by Alexis Piron ), Opera 3 acts (November 28, 1809 Paris, Grand Opéra); 2nd version (revised by Étienne de Jouy), Opera 3 acts (May 28, 1817 Paris, Opéra)
R. Kreutzer - Abel (François-Benoît Hoffman), Tragédie lyrique 3 acts (March 23, 1810 Paris, Opéra), revised as La Mort d'Abel , 2 acts (March 17, 1823)
Catel - Les Bayadères ( Les Bajadères ; Étienne de Jouy after Voltaire), Opera 3 acts (8 Aug 1810 Paris, Grand Opéra)
R. Kreutzer - Le Triomphe du mois de mars ( Emmanuel Dupaty ), Opéra-ballet 1 act (March 27, 1811 Paris, Opéra)
Méhul - Les Amazones ou La Fondation de Thèbes (original title Amphion; Étienne de Jouy), Opera 3 acts (December 17, 1811 Paris, Opéra)
Cherubini - Les Abencérages, ou L'Étendard de Grenade (Étienne de Jouy, after François-René de Chateaubriand , Opera 3 acts (April 6, 1813 Paris, Grand Opéra, in the presence of Emperor Napoleon I)
R. Kreutzer - L'Oriflamme (Charles-Guillaume Etienne / Louis-Pierre Baour-Lormian), opera 1 act (1 February 1814 Paris, Opéra), with Berton , Méhul and Paer
Spontini - Pélage ou Le Roi et la paix (Étienne de Jouy), Opera 2 acts (23 Aug 1814 Paris, Opéra)
Spontini - Les Dieux rivaux ou Les Fêtes de Cythère (Joseph Marie Armand Michel Dieulafoy / C. Brifaut), Opéra-ballet 1 act (June 21, 1816 Paris, Opéra) (with Kreutzer, Louis-Luc Loiseau de Persuis / Berton )
Catel - Zirphile et Fleur de Myrte ou Cent Ans en un jour (Étienne de Jouy / Nicolas Lefebvre), Opéra féerie 2 acts (1818 Paris, Grand Opéra)
Spontini - Olimpie (Joseph Marie Armand Michel Dieulafoy / Charles Brifaut based on the tragedy of the same name by Voltaire ), Tragédie lyrique 3 acts (22 Dec. 1819 Paris, Grand Opéra): 3rd version as Olimpie , Tragédie lyrique 3 acts (28 Febr . 1826 Paris, Opéra)