La muette de Portici

Daniel Auber

Operas La muette de Portici (1828) Fra Diavolo (1830) Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué (1833) Le cheval de bronze (1835) L'ambassadrice (1836) Le domino noir (1837) Le lac des fées (1839) Les diamants de la couronne (1841) La part du diable (1843) Haydée, ou Le Secret (1847) L'enfant prodigue (1850) Manon Lescaut (1856) Le premier jour de bonheur (1868)

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La muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici) originally called Masaniello, ou La muette de Portici, is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe. The work has an important place in musical history, as it is generally regarded as the earliest French grand opera.

Background

The opera was first given at the Paris Opéra on 29 February 1828.^[1] The role of Masaniello was taken by the famous tenor Adolphe Nourrit and Princess Elvire was sung by Laure Cinti-Damoreau. The dancer Laure Noblet played the mute title role, a part later taken by other dancers such as Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler, also the actress Harriet Smithson (the future wife of Hector Berlioz). The conductor at the premiere was François Antoine Habeneck.^[2]

La muette was innovatory in a number of ways. Firstly, it marked the introduction into opera of mime and gesture as an integral part of an opera plot (although these formats were familiar to Parisan audiences from ballet and mélodrame).^[3] Its historic setting, liberal political implications, use of popular melodies, handling of large orchestra and chorus and spectacular stage effects immediately marked it as different from preceding types of opera, in retrospect earning it the title of the first of the genre of 'Grand Opera'. The journal Pandore commented after the premiere

for a long time, enlightened critics have thought that alongside the old tragédie lyrique it was possible to have a more realistic and natural drama which might suit the dignity of this theatre.^[4]

The new genre was consolidated by Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829) and Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831).

La muette was revived in Paris immediately after the French July Revolution of 1830. Later, at a performance of this opera at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels on the 25 August 1830, a riot broke out that became the signal for the Belgian Revolution which led to Belgian independence.^[5] Richard Wagner remarked, in his 1871 Reminiscences of Auber, that the opera

whose very representation had brought [revolutions] about, was recognised as an obvious precursor of the July Revolution, and seldom has an artistic product stood in closer connection with a world-event.^[6]

Roles

Synopsis

The opera is loosely based on the historical uprising of Masaniello against Spanish rule in Naples in 1647. As the opera opens, Princess Elvire is due to marry Alphonse, the son of the Spanish viceroy. However, the mute girl Fenella denounces him as her seducer and kidnapper. Fenella's treatment provokes her brother, the fisherman Masaniello, to lead his friends in revolt against the Spanish occupation. Elvire forgives Alphonse but tries to find Fenella. As the revolution slips from Masaniello's control, Alphonse and Elvire seek refuge in the fisherman's hut and he risks the fury of his rebel friend Pietro to protect them. Pietro sees Masaniello as a traitor and potential tyrant and vows to bring him down. He poisons Masaniello, who manages to save Elvire even as he is dying. Alphonse marches against the rebels with a Spanish army and rescues Elvire. At the end of the opera, Mount Vesuvius erupts and Fenella throws herself into the volcano in despair.

Influence

La muette de Portici played a major role in establishing the genre of grand opera. Many of its elements - the five-act structure, the obligatory ballet sequence, the use of spectacular stage effects, the focus on romantic passions against a background of historical troubles - would become the standard features of the form for the rest of the 19th century. Grand opera would play a far more important role in the subsequent career of the librettist than that of the composer. Auber went on to write three more works in the genre: Le dieu et la bayadère (1830), Gustave III (1833) and Le lac des fées (1839). But their fame would be eclipsed by the grand operas for which Scribe provided the libretti: Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836) and Fromental Halévy's La Juive (1835). Nevertheless, Auber's pioneering work caught the attention of the young Richard Wagner, who was eager to create a new form of music drama. He noted that in La muette, "arias and duets in the wonted sense were scarcely to be detected any more, and certainly, with the exception of a single prima-donna aria in the first act, did not strike one at all as such; in each instance it was the ensemble of the whole act that riveted attention and carried one away...".^[7]

Selected recordings

• La muette de Portici June Anderson, Alfredo Kraus, John Aler, Ensemble Choral Jean Laforge, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, conducted by Thomas Fulton (EMI, 1987)

References

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac
• Sarah Hibberd, La Muette and her context, in The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera ed.David Charlton, Cambridge, 2003.
• Muette de Portici, La by Herbert Schneider, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
• Booklet notes to the Fulton recording by Michel Parouty
• The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera ed. Roger Parker (OUP, 1994)
• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (1993))
• Richard Wagner, tr. W. Ashton Ellis, Prose Works, vol. 5, New York, 1966

External links

A detailed synopsis may be found in The Standard Opera Glass