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Cherubini: A Critical Anthology, 1788–1801

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Charlton
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Extract

… as they say in Germany, ‘in music, Cherubini is a hundred years ahead of us’. trans. from Correspondance des Arrwteurs musiciens, 8 October 1803

Attitudes to Cherubini have been affected by the knowledge that his most important operas had scant success in Paris after 1800. This lack of a continuous French performing tradition has encouraged the feeling that they were perhaps unviable or unattractive. It is not one shared by the author of a substantial dissertation on Cherubini, Stephen C. Willis; but Willis's work was focussed on the composer rather than his operas’ reception. In fact, neither the performance history nor reception of these five main works has apparently, until now, been investigated. They are: Démophoon (text by J. F. Marmontel, Paris Opéra, 2 December 1788); Lodoïska (C. F. Fillette, or ‘Fillette Loraux’, 18 July 1791); Eliza, ou Le voyage aux glaciers du Mont St Bernard, J. A. Révéroni St-Cyr, 13 December 1794); Médée (F. B. Hoffman, 13 March 1797); and Les Deux journées (J. N. Bouilly, 16 January 1800). The last four were all produced at the Théâtre Feydeau. A properly detailed account of Cherubini's involvement at this theatre must be reserved for another occasion: part of the ignorance surrounding the genesis of these extraordinary operas lies simply in the fact than no history of the Feydeau has been written. Cherubini produced two comedies at the Feydeau which were unsuccessful and are not considered here: L'Hôtellerie portugaise (25 July 1798) and La Punition (23 February 1799).

Type
Original Articles
Information
Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle , Volume 26 , 1993 , pp. 95 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1993

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References

Notes

Professor Francesco Degrada, who invited me to speak at the 1991 Ravenna conference on ‘Cherubini e la scuola francese', is the true originator of this anthology. Colleagues at this conference provided further help in the quest for background information, especially Professor Jürgen Maehder (Berlin) and Dr Anselm Gerhard (Munster). In Paris, Michel Noiray (C.N.R.S.) and Nicole Wild (Bibliothèque de l'Opéra) gave essential assistance with sources. Professor Emmet Kennedy (George Washington University) and his Theater History Project with Marie-Laurence Netter, James McGregor and Mark Olsen (Chicago University Center for Information and Language Studies) were extremely generous with information. The anthology was transcribed and processed by Margaret Pugh, whose editorial eye and kindness in this collaboration must surely be second to none.Google Scholar

1 Stephen Charles Willis, ‘Luigi Cherubini: a Study of his Life and Dramatic Music, 1795–1815’ (dissertation, Columbia University, 1975).Google Scholar

2 Translated from ‘Notice’ in Notice des manuscrits autographes de la musique composée par feu M.-L.-C.-Z.-S. Cherubini (Paris, 1843), 1–2.Google Scholar

3 Arthur Pougin, ‘Cherubini. Sa vie, ses oeuvres, son role artistique', Le Ménestrel, 47 (1880–1), issue 40 of 4 September 1881, to 49 (1882–3), issue 3 of 17 December 1882.Google Scholar

4 Louis Péricaud, Théatre de ‘Monsieur' (Paris, 1908), 143. Boullet's book Essai sur l'art de construire des théatres, leurs machines et leurs mouvemens (Paris, 1801) is translated in Cecil T. Ault, Jr, ‘Design, Operation and Organization of Stage Machinery at the Paris Opéra, 1770–1873’ (dissertation, University of Michigan, 1983).Google Scholar

5 'Monsieur’ was the title traditionally held by the king's brother, in this case the Comte de Provence. In August 1792 the monarchy was relieved of its functions and the Republic was declared on 22 September.Google Scholar

6 Péricaud, Théatre de ‘Monsieur', 108.Google Scholar

7 Albert Soubies, Soixante-neuf ans à l'Opéra-Comique en deux pages (Paris, 1894), gives figures from 1825. My archival work shows that it was seen between 16 and 35 times each year to the end of 1807, and at least six times a year from then up to 1815.Google Scholar

8 A single Registre (Opéra-Comique series, no. 179) for the year Messidor VD3 to Germinal DC is at the Bibliothèque de l'Opéra.Google Scholar

9 Kennedy et al., using the Journal de Paris and the Petites affiches, list works by librettist/author and title. Some of their editorial attributions identifying Cherubini's librettists appear to be incorrect.Google Scholar

10 This is even the case in Belinda Cannone, La réception des opéras de Mozart dans la presse parisienne (1793–1829) (Paris, 1991). Pougin, ‘Cherubini', usefully referred to many reviews, but dismissed them in general as undeveloped: ‘La véritable critique n'existait pas’ (Le Ménestrel, 47, issue 49 of 6 November 1881, 386). Willis, ‘Luigi Cherubini', 43, denies any ‘really contemporary critique of [Eliza] ’ except in Journal de Paris, 20 December 1794.Google Scholar

11 Cannone, La réception, 39. She gives circulation figures as at 1803: the Gazette nationale, 3250; the Décade philosophique, 666; the Journal de Paris, 600.Google Scholar

12 Joanne Kitchen, Un journal ‘philosophique’: ‘La Décade’ (1794–1807), Bibliothèque de littérature et d'histoire, 5 (Paris, 1965).Google Scholar

13 However, the many cultural impulses behind Eliza are far more interesting than the merely anecdotal. See Fend, Michael, ‘Literary Motives, Musical Form and the Quest for the “Sublime“: Cherubini's Eliza ou le Voyage aux glaciers du Mont St. Bernard (1794)', Cambridge Opera Journal, 5 (March, 1993), forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 H. Bertram Cox and C.L.E. Cox (eds.), Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (London, 1907). Composer identified from payments Registre, Bibliothèque de l'Opéra.Google Scholar