Ali-Baba, ou Les quarante voleurs, opera in 4 acts

• Date: ca. 1833
• Composer: Luigi Cherubini
• Period: Classical (1750-1819)

Review

Ali Baba was Cherubini's final effort at operatic composition, and was written when the composer was seventy-three years of age. Berlioz hated it, and thought that there was not a single original idea in the entire work. He permanently alienated Cherubini with his blunt criticisms. Rossini likewise thought that it was the tamest and lamest thing that Cherubini had ever composed. Mendelssohn, on studying the score, admired its many beauties, but lamented its heavy scoring, and the brash use of trombones and cymbals. But it had some success in France and Germany, where Cherubini's music was much esteemed. Cherubini himself never spoke of the work. Four years before its first performance, he wrote in a letter that he would never finish it. At his age, he said, he could no longer afford a failure, and he was sure that his opera would not be accepted by the public. He thought that the Paris Opera was doing him a favor by staging it, because he was such a celebrity, and the senior composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire. He refused to go to any of the performances, and even left Paris for Versailles on its opening night. He did not trust the cast of the Paris Opera to do it justice, and drilled the chorus mercilessly through the final rehearsal. It premiered on July 22, 1833, to very mixed reviews.

Portions of Ali Baba were composed many years earlier, during the French Revolution. In 1793, during the years of upheaval, Cherubini began an opera called Kourkourgi, which features as its hero a Chinese man. Because of the disorders in Paris, the staging of Kourkourgi was postponed indefinitely. The overture and portions of the finale were never finished, and Cherubini stored the score in a portfolio of his works. Four pieces from Kourkourgi found their way into his final opera; a march, a duet, and two trios. Melesville the younger and Eugene Scribe were responsible for the libretto to Ali Baba, which is based upon a tale from the Arabian Nights.

The opera is in four acts, and a prologue. It is filled with spectacle and ballet, which add a sense of splendor and pageantry to the whole. The orchestra is the largest ever used by Cherubini, with the greatest variety of instrumental resources. He adds a touch of the "exotic" to his scoring, introducing Turkish elements to enliven the presentation. Although this is not an opera-bouffon, there are also many scenes of wit and humor that add variety. Plenty of melodic and formal invention can be seen in the music, and there is evidence that Cherubini adapted some of Rossini's compositional practices.

The prologue and first act set the stage for the story, with an elegant and melancholy arioso for Nadir and a beautiful aria for Delia, who is the object of Nadir's love. And the story begins to unfold, with a climax of confusion by the end of the first act. Act II is taken up mainly with a spectacle ballet, but the drama moves forward through lively recitative and inventive orchestral accompaniments. The highlight of the third act is a piece adapted from the opera Kourkourgi, and is a vocal ensemble featuring sleeping, snoring singers. As they dream, they each sing of their dearest desires, and a lovely tableau is presented before the audience. The rest of the opera also contains many beautiful pieces, but taken all in all, this is not the composer's greatest work. It does, however, show his incredible versatility with form, content, and variety of dramatic situations. ~ Rita Laurance, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Luigi:Alì Babà

Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Alfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus: Ah! Non mi ridestar
An Evening with Alfredo Kraus, Vol. 1	1999
Cherubini: Symphony In D/Cimarose: Il Matrimonio Segreto/Il Matrimonio Per Raggiro	1992
Luigi Cherubini: Overtures	1996

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