Samson (Voltaire)
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| Title: | Samson |
| Genus: | Opera libretto |
| Original language: | French |
| Author: | Voltaire |
| Literary source: | Book of Judges |
| Publishing year: | 1745 |
| Premiere: | private performances only |
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Samson is an opera libretto in five acts by Voltaire from 1733 . The libretto, first set by Jean-Philippe Rameau and then by François-André Danican Philidor , did not have any musical success worth mentioning. The opera versions are lost.
action
In the prologue, virtue and pleasure give the motto "Je veux instruire et je dois plaire". The action takes place in a landscape in Israel on the bank of a river. The text of the opera initially follows the biblical tradition of the Samson material. In the end, however, Dalila, in desperation, chooses suicide.
Literary source and biographical references
Voltaire worked on the libretto for Samson in the winter of 1733, although he was sick with an intestinal inflammation. He took the plot largely from the Book of Judges . Jean-Philippe Rameau had commissioned the libretto in the manner of Montéclaires Jephté (1732). Rameau's first musical version was completed in August 1734. In 1736, Voltaire and Rameau revised the opera again before submitting it to the censors.
Performances and contemporary reception
The completed opera Samson was banned by the censors of the Sorbonne in 1736 because of the blasphemy mistakes in the plot. According to a letter from Émilie du Châtelet on September 14, 1736, Voltaire had taken the liberty of incorporating actual miracles of Moses into the text. The fire from heaven rains from the right instead of the left. To do this, he limited himself to one column in the showdown. However, he did several private performances. Rameau's music was lost. However, it was reused several times by Rameau in later works. A second setting by François-André Danican Philidor in 1768 was unsuccessful and has also been lost. In 1782, Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais edited Voltaire's libretto Samson for a certain Mayr into a three-act version, which was not set to music. Most recently, Camille Saint-Saën's opera Samson et Dalila, composed from 1868 onwards, seems to have been influenced by Voltaire's libretto. The choir Peuple éveille-toi, rompe tes fers was set to music again by François-Joseph Gossec in 1791 and accompanied the transfer of Voltaire's battered remains to the Panthéon .
Going to press
The text of Samson appeared without the prologue for the first time in 1745 in the sixth volume of the Amsterdam edition by Ètienne Ledet. In the short foreword Voltaire claims that the public performance failed as a result of intrigue.
First editions
- Samson. Opéra , in: Oeuvres de Mr. de Voltaire, Volume VI, Amsterdam, Étienne Ledet, 1745, 8 °, pp. 5–54. Without the prologue.
- Samson. Opéra , in: Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire, Volume IX, Kehl, Imprimerie de la Société Littéraire-Typographique, 1784, pp. 1-46. With the prologue.
literature
- Cutberth Girdlestone: Voltaire, Rameau et Samson . Recherches sur la musique française classique 6, 1966, pp. 133-43.
- Mary Elizabeth Caroline Bartlet: Beaumarchais and Voltaire's Samson . Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture N ° 11, 1982, pp. 33-49.
- Jean Sgard: Le premier Samson de Voltaire , in: L'Opéra au XVIIIe siècle, N ° 31, 1982, pp. 513-25.
- Gabriel Omnès: A propos du Chœur patriotique de Voltaire-Gossec . MAA 9, 1985-1986, pp. 87-92.
- Manuel Couvreur: Samson , in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 206.
Web links
- Literature on Samson on the website of the Société des Etudes Voltairiennes
- François-Joseph Gossec - Hymn sur la translation du corps de Voltaire au Panthéon on YouTube