1 Denis Pierre Jean Papillon de La Ferté, L'administration des Menus: journal de Papillon de La Ferté, intendant et contrôleur de l'argenterie, Menus-Plaisirs et affaires de la chambre du Roi (1756–80), ed. Ernest Boysse (Paris, 1887), 274.Google Scholar

2 The dates of the premières of the older works were: Persée, 18 Apr. 1682; Castor et Pollux, 24 Oct. 1737 (revised version: 8 Jan. 1754); Athalie (written in 1690, performed privately during the reign of Louis XIV, but public performance prevented at that time because of its biblical subject), 3 Mar. 1716; Tancrède, 3 Sept. 1760; Sémiramis, 29 Aug. 1748; L'impromptu de campagne, 21 Dec. 1733.Google Scholar

3 Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la république des lettres en France, depuis MDCCLXII jusqu'aux nos jours; ou journal d'un observateur, attributed to Louis Petit de Bachaumont et al, 36 vols. (London, 1777–89), xix, 235 (entry for 15 July 1770).Google Scholar

4 It had the unusual honour of a second performance later the same season (on 7 Nov.). During the reign of Louis XVI it was given at court no fewer than eight times (the last being on 23 Feb. 1787). Some critics claimed that it was unsuccessful and that its humour was in poor taste; e.g., the Mémoires secrets, v, 225–26 (entry for 7 Dec. 1770). Others were more accurate; while deploring the subject and style of the work, the reviewer of Affiches, annonces et avis diners admitted that it drew crowds in Paris (9 Jan. 1771, p. 8). Statistics for the performances in the city indicate that it was popular with the Parisian public; see Clarence D. Brenner, The Théâtre Italien, its Repertory 1716–1793, with a Historical Introduction, University of California Publications in Modem Philology, lxiii (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961).Google Scholar

5 On 29 Dec. 1775, 27 Mar. 1778 (in the one-act version) and 24 Oct. 1786 (in the three-act version). For a list of performances in Paris to 1793, see Brenner, The Théâtre Italien.Google Scholar

6 One widely-publicized example was her generosity towards the victims of a fire which occurred during a Parisian fëte to celebrate her marriage. See Mémoires secrets, v, 140 (entry for 3 June 1770) and the Mercure de France dédié au Roi (July, 1770), 199–201. Numerous other incidents were reported during the early 1770s.Google Scholar

7 L'amitié à l'épreuve, comédie en trois actes, ed. Lucien Solvay, Collection complète des oeuvres de Grétry, xlii–xliii (Leipzig and Brussels, n.d.), preface p. viii. This edition is of the 1786 version of the opera in three acts. The pieces of the two-act version omitted in this one are included in an appendix, but to examine the 1770 opera as a whole, one must look at the 1771 printed score: Oeuvre VI, L'amitié à l'épreuve, comédie en deux actes mêlée d'ariettes, représentée devant Sa Majesté à Fontainebleau le 13 novembre 1770 et à Paris le 17 janvier 1771, dédiée à Madame la Dauphine, par M. Grétry de l'Académie de Boulogne (Paris, [1771]).Google Scholar

8 The Mémoires secrets, for example, thought Persic a poor choice for the May celebrations: ‘it seemed strange that from the first one bored Madame la Dauphine, whose ears have only heard up till now the best works of the great masters of Italy, with French récitatif, which is insufferable for those unaccustomed to it’, v, 133 (entry for 18 May 1770). In Vienna Marie-Antoinette had the opportunity to become familiar with some French comédies mêlées d'ariettes by Grétry's predecessors, Duni, Philidor and Monsigny. Grétry's own works were frequently performed there from the 1770s on.Google Scholar

9 Marie Bobillier (pseud. Michel Brenet), Grétry, sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1884), 62, 80.Google Scholar

Papillon de La Ferté, L'administration, 308. F-Po, ‘Registres de l'Opéra-Comique’, t. liii (monthly accounts from October, 1771 on). Paris, Archives Nationales (henceforth F-Pan), 0^1∗, 2894–95, 0¹ 3025–30^B.Google Scholar

10 It was not court practice to reprint as a matter of course repertory works, and on the rare occasions when a reprinting was done on court orders, it was in time for the performance. The reception of the couplets was so striking that a new edition was issued to commemorate the event after the fact. While the addition of such complimentary couplets was common for court performances, they were seldom included in the published texts (as the fiction was that they were spontaneous, improvised expressions of affection for the king or the royal family). Again, Favart's ones here are the exception. Jean de La Chapelle, Les carrosses d'Orléans, comédie par M. de La Chapelle: représentée pour la première fois le 9 août 1680, conforme à la représentation [du 8 novembre 1770], rev. Charles Simon Favart [Paris, 1770], 47–48.Google Scholar

11 Alfred d'Ameth and Auguste Geffroy, eds., Correspondance secrète entre Marie-Thérèse et le c[om]te de Mercy-Argenteau avec les lettres de Marie-Thérèse et de Marie-Antoinette publiée avec une introduction et des notes, 3 vols. (Paris, 1874), i, 95.Google Scholar

12 The Mémoires secrets noted that the couplets in praise of Madame la Dauphine ‘were very warmly applauded’, xix, 279 (entry for 11 Nov. 1770).Google Scholar

13 The distinction between comédie mêlée d'ariettes and opéra-comique given here follows the standard practice at the Comédie Italienne. The use of the term opéra-comique to mean a work with newly-written musical numbers and spoken dialogue (the modern sense) became current in the early nineteenth century; at the same time the term pièce en vaudevilles was applied to those using pre-existent airs. I shall follow eighteenth-century terminology in this article.Google Scholar

14 ‘Registres de l'Opera-Comique’, t. lv. F-Pan 0^1∗ 2896–97.Google Scholar

15 See the list of works for ‘Grétry, André-Emest-Modeste’ by M.E.C. Bartlet and José Quitin, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), vii, 709–12. Le magnifique (première Comédie Italienne, 4 Mar. 1773) was first performed at court on 26 Mar. following.Google Scholar

16 Jeanne Louise Henriette Geneste Campan, Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie-Antoinette, reine de France et de Navarre suivis de souvenirs et anecdotes historiques sur les règnes de Louis XIV, de Louis XV et de Louis XVI, 3 vols. (Paris, 1822), i. 155.Google Scholar

17 Louise Elizabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Souvenirs, 3 vols. (Paris, 1835–37), i, 67. Her portrait of Grétry is reproduced in Quitin's article in The New Grove, vii, 705. According to Jean François Barrière, Mme Campan frequently accompanied Marie-Antoinette on the harp or piano when she sang Grétry's airs. Campan, Mémoires, i, p. xvii.Google Scholar

18 Many are now in F-Pn, series Vm², Vm³, F and H. A few arc found in other collections; for example, that of Le jugement de Midas is in B-Br.Google Scholar

19 Papillon de La Ferté. L'administration, 359, 388, 420, 424–25 and elsewhere (the quotation is from p. 420).Google Scholar

20 Such as one for 2400 livres given him on the queen's orders in 1779. F-Pan 0¹ 3055. For his court salary in the 1770s. see the annual accounts, F-Pan 0^1∗2895–2902.Google Scholar

21 Papillon de La Ferté, L'administration, 405.Google Scholar

22 On Marie-Antoinette's patronage of serious opera, see Jullien, Adolphe, La cour et l'Opéra sous Louis XVI: Marie-Antoinette et Sacchini; Salieri; Favart et Gluck; d'après des documents inédits conservés aux Archives de l'état et à l'Opéra (Paris, 1878); the same author's La ville et la cour au XVIII’ siècle (Paris, 1881), ‘Marie-Antoinette musicienne’, 61–101 (which also includes a study of her musical training and performance of harp and vocal music); and Gustave Desnoiresterres, Gluck et Piccinni, 1774–1800 (Paris, 1872). During the period 1780–85, Marie-Antoinette, with her husband's brother, the comte d'Artois (later Charles X), and other close aristocratic friends, performed comédies and comédies mêlées d'ariettes privately at the Trianon, Versailles; see Jullien, La comédie à la cour: les théâtres de société royale pendant le siècle dernier (Paris, [1885]), 252–315. In general, the role of the Comedie Italienne in court entertainments, 1770–89, has not yet been the subject of scholarly examination.Google Scholar

23 Papillon de La Ferté, L'administration, 284.Google Scholar

24 After the extensive publicity given to the 1766 fëte de la rosière in the Année littéraire, iv (1766), 217–29, several authors made use of the tradition in poems and conter, there was even an earlier treatment of it for the stage (Favart's La rosière de Salency, première 25 Oct. 1769 at Fontainebleau). These will be examined briefly in my preface for the facsimile edition of Grétry's opera to be published in the series French Opera of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, lxi (New York).Google Scholar

25 Before my citation of a MS containing this version in the work-list in The New Grove (709), it was thought lost by Grétry scholars. F-Pn Rés. 1336 is the MS prepared for the première (though its title-page bears' the 1774 date, incorrectly copied from the printed edition). Shortly thereafter it was given to the dauphine (it has her coat-of-arms on the cover). It entered the library of the Conservatoire in the mid nineteenth century and was transferred to F-Pn in 1964. Vol. lxi of the French Opera series will reproduce facsimiles of Rés. 1336 and the four-act libretto printed for the court première: La rosière de Salency, opéra lyri-comique, en quatre actes, représenté devant Sa Majesté, à Fontainebleau, le samedi 23 octobre 1773. ([Paris], 1773).Google Scholar

26 La rosière de Salency, pastorale en trois actes, ed. Edouard Fétis and Alfred Wotquenne, Collection complète des oeuvres de Grétry, xxx.Google Scholar

27 The form may be summarized: orchestral introduction anticipating the opening of the melody; solo: a' a′ b; chorus: b; orchestral conclusion (each letter represents an eight-bar period used for a pair of lines in the text).Google Scholar

28 It is a constant theme throughout his Mémoires, ou essais sur la musique, 3 vols. (Paris, an V [1797]).Google Scholar

29 Denis Diderot et al, eds., Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 35 vols. (Paris, 1751–80), xii, 156–59. The rest of this paragraph summarizes Jaucourt's definition.Google Scholar

30 Bernard Germain Etienne de La Cépède, La poètique de la musique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1785), ii, 289–303. He chose to define pastorale by example – a touching story of two naïve young shepherd lovers.Google Scholar

31 Grétry, Mémoires, i, 256–59. He perhaps read Bruté de Loirelle's translation: Pastorales et poèmes de M. Gessner, qui n'avaient pas encore été traduits, suivis de deux odes de M. Haller traduites de l'allemand, et d'une ode de M. Dryden, traduite de l'anglais en vers françois (Paris, 1766).Google Scholar

32 Even in an unsympathetic review, the critic of the Correspondance littéraire praised his style: the libretto ‘is written with fluency; the ariettes are generally well formed, and one finds many attractive phrases and pleasing verses’. Maurice Tourneux, ed., Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc., 16 vols. (Paris, 1877–82), X, 401 (entry for Mar. 1774). Grétry felt that his collaborator tried for too literary a style. Mémoires, i, 437–38.Google Scholar

33 See, for example, Jean François de La Harpe, Lycée, ou cours de littérature ancienne et moderne, 16 vols. (Paris, ans VII–XIII [1799–1805]), xi, pt. 2, 485–86.Google Scholar

34 Later we see Cécile doing this (Act 1, scene vi).Google Scholar

35 Some reviewers criticized Pezay for allowing Colin to kiss Cécile' (an action seen by the bailiff and his excuse for disgracing her); see the Almanack des muses (Paris, 1775), 316–17. The librettist justified the kiss on the grounds of the innocence of village love in the three-act edition of the libretto: La rosière de Satenci, pastorale en trois actes, mêlée d'ariettes; représentée, pour la première fois, par les comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi, le lundi 28 février 1774: précédée de réflexions sur cette pièce, mêlées de quelques observations générales sur les spectacles (Paris, 1774), pp. xxiii-xxvii. He had no less a supporter than Voltaire in a short poem published in the Mercure de France (Sept., 1774), 15.Google Scholar

36 As the critics of the Correspondance littéraire, x, 400, and the Gazette de littérature, des sciences et des arts (Paris), 12 Mar. 1774, 4, noted.Google Scholar

37 Journal encyclopédique dédié à Son Altesse Sérénissime Monseigneur le duc de Bouillon, Grand Chambellan de France, &c., &c., &c. (Paris, 1774), iv. pt. 2, 334–36, and the Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 4.Google Scholar

38 Mistaking the bailiff for Herpin, Jean Gaud describes in vivid terms what he would do with that scoundrel of a bailiff if he caught him. The miller recounts how he and Colin escaped the storm's fury in a gentle ariette (no. 15), which became one of the most popular pieces in the score. Grétry intended the light tone: ‘he [Jean Gaud] summarizes the details of a shipwreck, without thinking of making it a frightful picture; by such a procedure, he seems more generous and kinder’. Mémoires, i, 257. The principal emotion is one of relief. Dramatically this scene allows the passage of time necessary for Colin to petition the lord for Cécile (an action that is not represented on stage).Google Scholar

39 La Cépède, La poètique de la musique, ii, 284, 287–88.Google Scholar

40 For the Paris version Grétry wrote a new air, ‘Quand le rossignol du boccage’, especially tailored to show off the virtuosity of Mme Trial (a better singer, though not so fine an actress as Mme Laruette, the original performer of Cécile, according to the Correspondance littéraire, x, 401). This air, too, has a flute obbligato (as well as a solo oboe part) representing birds. Interestingly, it ends with a 3/8 section labelled Andantino pastorale – the same metre used for no. 8. The close proximity of no. 8 and the new piece at the end of Act 1 and the vocal deficiencies of M. Laruette, the bailiff (Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 5), were no doubt the main reasons why Grétry deleted the duo before the publication of the score. That he was satisfied with his music is clear, for he later parodied it in a duo for two tenors, ‘C'est dans ces lieux’ (Les mariages samnites, no. 2, première Comédie Italienne, 12 June 1776). The changes are in places quite substantial to accommodate the new text and vocal scoring; and the ending is different. The original is much superior.Google Scholar

41 In the three-act version, this air was moved to Act 2, scene iii (after no. 13) – thus underlining the parallel between the bailiff's emotional state and the storm (which is still in progress). It was probably cut to reduce the vocal requirements of the part assigned to M. Laruette.Google Scholar

42 The most famous example of a bird imitation in Grétry's oeuvre is ‘Quand la fauvette avec ses petits’ (Zémire et Azor, no. 15); it also has a flute obbligato. Storms are more frequent. In Le huron, the hero will brave the storm for the one he loves in ‘Qu'on mette à prix le coeur d'Hortense’ (no. 6). In Zémire et Azor, the servant tries to persuade himself and his master that the storm is dying down, while the orchestra indicates that it is continuing with full force (‘L'orage va cesser’, no. 1). The duo ‘Notre vaisseau dans une paix profonde’ (Le tableau parlant, no. 8) is a mocking of the serious storm tradition. Grétry did not apply these symbols mechanical. In ‘Du rossignol pendant la nuit’ (Les deux avares, no. 1), though the text mentions the nightingale, he forwent a woodwind obbligato. The dramatic situation clearly indicates that the piece is a serenade (in a town); hence, the mandoline is the most appropriate musical symbol.Google Scholar

43 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1768), 305.Google Scholar

44 Anthony C. Baines and Meredith Ellis Little, ‘Musette’, The New Grove, xii, 796–97 (includes an illustration of a gentleman playing the musette). As Baines pointed out, ‘Courtly ladies and gentlemen would perform [on the musette] in pastoral costume’. See also Richard D. Leppen, Arcadia at Versailles: Noble Amateur Musicians and their Musettes and Hurdy-gurdies at the French Court (c. 1660–1789): a Visual Study (Amsterdam and Lisse, 1978).Google Scholar

45 Rousseau, Dictionnaire, 366.Google Scholar

46 The 6/8 opening of no. 16 with its fast tempo and energetic melodic lines, however, does not have pastorale overtones. In earlier comédies mêlées d'ariettes, Grétry used the 6/8 metre seldom for entire pieces; most of these are sentimental, not pastoral; e.g., ‘Sans l'amour lorsque l'on s'enchaîne’ (L'amitié à l'épreuve, no. 6) and ‘Vous me charmez’ (Le huron, no. 5). Fast 6/8 conclusions to pieces, on the other hand, are a heritage from the opera buffa; e.g., ‘Nièces, neveux, race haïssable’ (Les deux avares, no. 4) and !Je brûlerai d'une ardeur étemelle' (Le tableau parlant, no. 9).Google Scholar

47 According to the composer, ‘in general, all the minor keys have a melancholic tint; they suit abstract, metaphysical feelings, those which are not absolutely clear in character, such as sadness mixed [with hope or love], deceit, irony, etc.’. Mémoires, ii, 358.Google Scholar

48 Even considered as a percentage of pieces in the score, the use of the minor mode in La rosière de Salency is unusually extensive (25%). For comparison, the figures for Grétry's works of the early 1770s are: two vocal pieces in minor out of 16 in Les deux avares (13%), one out of 14 in L'amitié à l'épreuve (7%), two out of 18 in L'ami de la maison (11%), three out of 21 in Zémire et Azor (14%), and one out of 14 in Le magnifique (7%). Lucile (première 5 Jan. 1769) is also a special case; two of its ten vocal numbers (20%) are in minor and help establish the mood of this comédie larmoyante (i.e., a work so sentimental and pathetic it was intended to reduce the audience, or at least its female members, to tears).Google Scholar

49 Even the entr'acte in between is in D minor (with a contrasting middle section in D major).Google Scholar

50 Grétry, Mémoires, ii, 356–60. A useful complement to this list for the current French view is the ‘Tableau des modes de la musique des grecs comparés avec les tons de la musique moderne’ in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols. (Paris, 1780), ii, facing p. 29. For a general survey of the topic, see Steblin, Rita, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, 1983).Google Scholar

51 Grétry called it ‘moving’ (ii, 357). His usage in his early operas shows variety in emotions expressed: sadness in ‘Nelson part, Nelson me laisse’ (L'amitié à l'épreuve, no. 9) and ‘Plus de dépit, plus de tristesse’ (Les deux avares, no. 6), tenderness in ‘Je veux le voir, je veux lui dire’ (Zémire et Azor, no. 11) and irony in ‘Bon, bon! mieux encor’ (L'ami de la maison, no. 12).Google Scholar

52 The adjectives are Laborde's. Grétry showed a comic side to D minor rage in ‘Pour tromper un pauvre vieillard’ (Le tableau parlant, no. 6).Google Scholar

53 Laborde added that “Plato considers it suitable for maintaining morality'. Grétry's early operas have several examples of self-sacrifice in C minor: that of the father for his daughters in ‘Je vais faire encore un voyage’ (Zémire et Azor, no. 10), that of the hero for his family in ‘Je puis braver les coups du sort’ (Silvain, no. 2) and that of the heroine for the man she loves in ‘Au bien suprême … Ah! ma belle maîtresse’ (Lucile, no. 7).Google Scholar

54 Grétry, ii, 357. Laborde concurred and added that ‘Plutarch calls it suitable for tragedies; Aristotle, for sad hearts; Plato, for tears’.Google Scholar

55 There are two notable examples: ‘Ah! ma femme, qu'avez-vous fait’, which expresses despair at an event that seems to block the marriage of the heroine (Lucile, no. 5), and ‘Le pauvre enfant ne savait pas’, in which the father sadly recounts that his daughter's innocent request has brought (seemingly) tragic consequences (Zémire et Azor, no. 5).Google Scholar

56 Interestingly, according to Grétry, although the minor mode was appropriate for sadness in general, the major mode was more suitable for the expression of extreme sadness because it ‘has a well defined character’ (ii, 358). In La rosière de Salency, he conformed to his theories in choosing E♭ major, the ‘noble and pathetic key’ (ii, 357), for no. 17, the air in which Cécile contemplates suicide.Google Scholar

57 As the Appendix shows, there are nine duos per se and a duo opening the second-act finale. Zémire et Azor is more typical; it has three duos. Even Les deux avares, whose subject naturally requires the two uncles to appear frequently together, has only five. The unusual quantity of duos was noticed by contemporary critics; e.g., Journal des beaux-arts et des sciences, iii (July, 1774), 141–54, and Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 4.Google Scholar

58 Mercure de France (July, 1774), 165; L'esprit des journaux (Paris), 30 Oct. 1774, 150; Antoine Jean-Baptiste Abraham d'Origny, Annales du Théâtre Italien, depuis son origine jusqu' à ce jour: dédiées au Roi, 3 vols. (Paris, 1788), ii, 88.Google Scholar

59 Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 4; Journal des beaux-arts, iii, 153.Google Scholar

60 Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 4; Journal des beaux-arts, iii, 151.Google Scholar

61 In revising La rosière de Salency in a three-act version, Pezay and Grétry improved its dramatic flow. Before publication of the score, Grétry cut in general numbers which taxed the two weakest singers in his cast, Nainville (Herpin) and Laruette (the bailiff). One musical change is not an improvement: the new air ‘Quand le rossignol du boccage’ is far too virtuosic a piece in its first section for the character Cécile.Google Scholar

62 Gazette de littérature, 12 Mar. 1774, 4. See also the Mercure de France (Apr., 1774), 180: ‘The music of this comédie is pleasing, tasteful and elegant; it has new, varied pieces of a delightful freshness and a very piquant effect. It will please even more when one can appreciate further its finesse, fine details, … above all, that correctness of expression, that well-reasoned choice of harmony, that true-to-life expression of melody which distinguish each of Grétry's works and which give them all sympathetic qualities and the most appropriate character’.Google Scholar

63 The new sets were all the more remarkable because the court could have used those of Favart's La rosière de Salency of 1769. In fact, only the rosière's throne from the earlier work was retained, and even it was repainted with an elaborate flower and greenery decoration. F-Pan 0¹ 3038, ‘Mémoire des ouvrages de peintures en décoration faittes pour les spectacles donnés à Fontainebleau pendant le voyage de l'année 1773’. Boquet claimed expenses of 930 livres, but was paid 838 livres – still a substantial sum. The librettist considered the quality of the sets of distinct advantage in the court performance and was publicly critical of the rudimentary ones at the Comédie Italienne. La rosière de Salenci, pastorale en trois actes, pp. xiii–xiv, xxi–xxiii.Google Scholar

64 The complex pre-première history will be examined in my preface to the facsimile of La rosière de Salency in the French Opera series.Google Scholar

65 Papillon de La Ferté, L'administration, 355–56. He was referring specifically to Monsigny's La belle Arsène, but an examination of the court accounts shows the application to La rosière de Salency to be just as fair.Google Scholar

66 Journal politique, ou gazette des gazettes, suppl. 1–15 Mar. 1774, 51: ‘At their arrival one witnessed those transports of joy that their presence has a right to inspire in the French’.Google Scholar

67 It was still quite rare for authors to be called to the stage, and public applause from royalty was an unusual honour. Journal des beaux-art, ii (Apr., 1774), 113.Google Scholar

68 While the difference in size and shape of the Versailles stage compared to Fontainebleau's prevented the re-use of the earlier sets, it was most unusual indeed not to adopt standard sets for a mid-season performance not a première. Mazières, who worked under Boquet's direction, submitted a bill for 279 livres and was paid 246 livres. F-Pan 0¹ 3042, ‘Mémoire des ouvrages de peintures et décorations faites pour le théâtre du château de Versailles … dans le courant de l'année 1774’. This second court performance disproves the rumours of the first's lukewarm reception. Mémoires secrets, xxiv, 312–13 (entry for 16 Nov. 1773).Google Scholar

69 In its three-act version, La rosière de Salency was given at Versailles 6 Dec. 1776, 6 Mar. 1778 and 16 Mar. 1781. It was performed at the Comédie Italienne (the Opéra-Comique) for over forty years.Google Scholar

70 The ones for the concerts were nos. 1,2, 10, 15 and ‘Quand le rossignol du boccage’. The string parts for no. 1 are now F-Pn Vm.^{3 bis} 113²; the complete set of parts for no. 15 is F-Pn Vm.^{5 bis} 113¹. See the inventory of the court music library, F-Pan 0^1∗ 3246, pp. 48–51. The collection F-Pn Vm.⁷ 7162–72 has nos. 1, 2, 10, 12, 15, 17 and ‘Quand le rossignol du boccage’.Google Scholar

71 Grétry, De la vérité: ce que nous fümes, ce que nous sommes, ce que nous devrions être, 3 vols. (Paris, an IX [1801]), i, 155–56, 163. His praise (tempered somewhat by criticisms for her frivolous behaviour during the 1780s) is highly unusual for the date – France was still a Republic, and positive references to Louis XVI and his consort were few indeed.Google Scholar

72 At the Académie Royale, most pastorales included gods and goddesses as characters as well as mortels (Grétry's Céphale et Procris, ou L'amour conjugal, libretto by Marmontel, première Versailles, 30 Dec. 1773, MS score: F-Pn Rés. Vm² 163, is a good example of this type); but some had no supernatural beings; e.g., Laborde's La cinquantaine, libretto by Francis Georges Fouques (pseud. Desfontaines), première 13 Aug. 1771. At the Comédie Italienne, pastorales were very rare. Significantly, Duni's Thémire (libretto by Sedaine) had its première at court (Fontainebleau, 20 Oct. 1770); it conformed rigorously to the ideals of the genre in its depiction of naïve pastoral love, and as a result, it lacked sufficient dramatic interest to be successful in Paris (where it was given only four times). Kohaut's La bergère des Alpes (libretto by Marmontel, première Comédie Italienne, 19 Feb. 1766) is not a straightforward pastorale, but rather a satire on the aristocratic taste for the genre (as a young upper-class man decides to disguise himself as a shepherd causing his relatives and the real shepherds difficulties).Google Scholar

73 An excellent barometer of this is the list of subscribers to boxes for the year. ‘Registres de l'Opéra-Comique’, t. 50–72 (accounts for 1768–69 to 1788–89), t. 151 (box rentals, 1767–68, 1768–69, 1783–92).Google Scholar

74 Soon this trend worked against both the pastorale and the opéra féerie. Although those in repertory continued to be given from time to time, the comédiens italiens rejected new libretti in these genres by the late 1780s because according to them, the public wanted either dramatic works with a quickly moving plot full of surprises or frankly comic works; both the pastorale and opéra féerie were too cold and calm to please. See, for example, their decisions concerning Adémar an opéra féerie (libretto submitted 7 July 1788), La vertu récompensée, a pastorale (libretto submitted 19 Sept. 1788), and Les deux bergères et le papillon, a pastorale (libretto submitted 29 Oct. 1788); ‘Registres de l'Opéra-Comique’, t. 121 (minutes of committee meetings).Google Scholar

75 Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Eglantine, Oeuvres mêlées et posthumes, 2 vols. (Paris, an XI [1802]), i, 123 (the poem, pp. 121–27, was read at the unveiling of Grétry's bust at the Théâtre de Liège, 23 Sept. 1780).Google Scholar