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Exoticism and politics: Beaumarchais' and Salieri's Le Couronnement de Tarare (1790)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Thomas Betzwieser
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Extract

Not least because of its librettist, Tarare (1787) ranks among the most interesting ‘reform’ operas of the eighteenth century. The work was by no means unique among such efforts at the Académie Royale de Musique, but it undoubtedly had the greatest impact after the Piccinni controversy at the end of the 1770s, in part because Beaumarchais was untiring in his efforts to promote the new opera – a task at which he was far superior to his librettistic colleagues. He presented his new operatic conception in a detailed preface to the libretto (‘Aux Abonnés de l'Opéra’), the central point of which was to emphasise the mixture of conventional genre traditions, in particular of serious and comic elements.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , July 1994 , pp. 91 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented at the conference ‘I suoni dell'89: La rivoluzione francese e la musica’ held at Reggio Emilia in 1989. I am grateful to Luigi Pestalozza and Carlo Piccardi for permission to publish this translation in advance of the conference proceedings.

1 See Braunbehrens, Volar, Salieri: Ein Musiker im Schatten Mozarts (Munich, 1989), 162–84.Google Scholar

2 For a detailed commentary on this preface, see my Exotismus und ‘Türkenoper’ in der französischen Musik des Anden Regime (Laaber, 1993), 332–8.Google Scholar

3 Orientalism (New York, 1979), 5f.Google Scholar

4 On Beaumarchais’ preliminary studies in connection with Tarare, see Lintilhac, Eugene, Beaumarchais et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1887), 97–9.Google Scholar

5 See also Bonnerot, Olivier, ‘Autour des Persans dans l'opéra au XVIIIe siècle’, in L'Opéra au XVIIIe siècle, Actes du Colloque Aix-en-Provence 1977 (Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, 1982), 185–203.Google Scholar

6 No. 27 (7 July 1787).

7 See Betzwieser, , Exotismus, 221–4.Google Scholar

8 Salieri attempted to defuse this maxim by setting another version (‘Roi, nous mettons la liberté/Aux pieds de la vertu suprême;/Règne sur ce Peuple qui t'aime,/Par les loix et par l'équité.’), which Beaumarchais did not approve of, finding his own conclusion ‘plus philosophique’.

9 The 1788 edition of Favart's Soliman II called the concluding divertissement Couronnement de Roxelane, to which Beaumarchais' title may allude.

10 Heinzelmann, Josef, Beaumarchais' und Saliens ‘Tarare’: Ein Schlüβelwerk der Opern – und Weltgeschichte, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Spielzeit 1987/1988, Musiktheater Heft 12.Google Scholar

11 Journal Général de France, No. 218 (Friday, 08 1790), 896.Google Scholar

12 See Angermüller, Rudolph, Antonio Salien: Sein Leben und seine weltlichen Werke unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner ‘groβen’ Opern, Schriften zur Musik 19, Teil III: Dokumente (Munich, 1972), 386–95.Google Scholar

13 Correspondance littéraire, XVI, 74f.Google Scholar

14 See his letter of 8 July 1790 in Angermüller, 386. The performances did not take place, however, until 3, 6 and 10 August.

15 Beaumarchais, , Oeuvres, ed. Larthomas, Pierre and Larthomas, Jacqueline (Paris, 1988), 591Google Scholar (henceforth cited as Beaumarchais).

16 Didier, Béatrice, Ecrire la Révoluton 1789–1799 (Paris, 1989), 164–5.Google Scholar

17 Beaumarchais, , 594.Google Scholar

18 Didier, , 166.Google Scholar

19 See Angermüller, , III, 392–5.Google Scholar

20 Beaumarchais, , 593–4.Google Scholar

21 Betzwieser, , Exotismus (see n. 2), 121–3.Google Scholar

22 ‘Comédie en un acte, en prose et en vaudevilles, mêlée de divertissements, par Radet et Barré. Les airs arrangés par M. Lescot, musicien du Théâtre Italien.’ Scene 4, for example, has the following. ‘Si nature bonne mère/Refuser à nous beauté,/Nous donner faveur plus chère,/Franchise et fidélité’. See Mercier, Roger, Afrique noire dans la littérature franfaise. Les premières images XVIIe –XVIIIe siècles (Dakar, 1962), 168.Google Scholar

23 Most slaves in Turkish operas of the eighteenth century were silent.

24 ‘Befreien französische Autoren des 18. Jahrhunderts die schwarzen Rebellen und die Sklaven aus ihren Ketten? Oder Versuch darüber, wie man den Guten Wilden zur Strecke bringt’, in Die andere Welt. Studien bum Exotismus, ed. Koebner, Thomas and Pickerodt, Gerhart (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 148.Google Scholar

25 ibid., 159.

26 Letter of 10 August 1790; Angermüller, , Nr. 334, 393–4.Google Scholar

27 See Bénot, Yves, La Révolution franfaise et la fin des colonies (Paris, 1988).Google Scholar

28 Among its members were Condorcet, Brissot, Sieyès, Necker, Mirabeau and Péton.

29 ‘La Convention nationale déclare que l'esclavage des nègres dans toutes les colonies est aboli; en conséquence elle décrète que tous les hommes sans distinction de couleur, domiciliés dans les colonies, sont citoyens français et jouiront de tous les droits assurés par la Constitution.’ see Gaston-Martin, , Histoire de l'esclavage dans les colonies françaises (Paris, 1948), 228f.Google Scholar

30 See Welschinger, Henri, Le Théâtre de la Révolution, 1789–1799 (Paris, 1880)Google Scholar, and Hoffmann, Léon-Français, Le Nègre romantique: Personnage littéraire et obsession collective (Paris, 1973), 99–146.Google Scholar

31 On this rather contradictory piece, see Mercier, (n. 22), 186–8.Google Scholar

32 See, for example, the patriotique, BalletLa Fête américaine (1794)Google Scholar, in which ‘les hommes de toutes couleurs dansent joyeusement leur égalité autour de l'arbre de la liberté’; Journal des théâtres, 20 08 1794.Google Scholar See also Hugo, Valentine J., ‘Tableau de la danse au théâtre pendant la Révolution française (1789–1795)’, Revue musicale, 3 (1922), 141.Google Scholar

33 (Paris, 1794), 7f.Google Scholar; cited from Mercier, , 192.Google Scholar

34 See Besnier, Patrick, ‘L'Opéra comme fête révolutionnaire’, in Les Fêtes de la Révolution, ed. Ehrard, Jean and Viallaneix, Paul (Paris, 1977), 419–32.Google Scholar

35 The publisher's catalogue of Imbault for 1792 lists two pieces among the twenty–nine individual numbers of Tarare that clearly belong to Le Coumnnement de Tarare: No. 28, ‘Seigneur, cette loi’ (Duo from scene 1), and No. 29, ‘Holà! holà’ (Chorus of the black slaves). See Cari Johansson, French Music Publishers’ Catalogues of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Stockholm, 1955)Google Scholar, Facs. app. 9. I have been unable to locate copies of either.

36 The former is in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, S.m. 4526 (1 am indebted to Josef Heinzelmann for loan of a reproduction); the latter in F-Po Mat. 18 [274 (1–514)].

37 ‘On battra le Tambour pendant les trois marches suivantes.’ A-Wn S.m. 4526, fois. 1ff.

38 Beaumarchais, , 595.Google Scholar

39 ‘TAM–TAM ou TEM-TEM, Instrument de percussion en usage chez les Orientaux, & admis, de temps à autre, dans nos orchestres, pour des effets terribles & lugubres. C'est, dans sa forme, une espéce de tambour de basque, tout entier d'un métal composé, qui a une vibration extraordinaire.’ Framery, , Ginguené, and Momigny, , Engclopédie Méthodique: Musique (Paris, 1818), II, 512.Google Scholar Until now the earliest examples for its use were considered to be Gossec's funeral march for Mirabeau (1791) and Steibelt's, Romeo et Juliette (1793).Google Scholar

40 The greatest use of choral counterpoint occurs characteristically in the Prologue and European divertissement (‘Peuple léger’).

41 F-Po Mat. 18 [274 (6, 40)]. One of the two volumes (40) contains the ‘rôles ajoutés’ of Le Coumnnement: Un Bonze, Un Député de Zanguebar, Un Nègre, Un Hérault armé, 2 Corifées dessus, Un jeune Homme, Un Bonze basse Taille.

42 ‘Divertissement du 5e acte de Tarare’, F-Po Mat. 18 [274 (202) and (205)] respectively. I should like to thank Nicole Wild for her help in checking through these documents.

43 Loménie, Louis de, Beaumarchais et son temps (Paris, 1856), II, 413.Google Scholar Unfortunately, this fact is attested to only by Loménie, as the source of the letter is unknown.

44 See d'Estrée, Paul, ‘Le Nègre de Beaumarchais (1766)’, Nouvelle Revue retrarpeve, 5 (09 1896), 182–90.Google Scholar

45 See Lesure, François, ‘A propos de Beaumarchais’, Revue de musicologie, 53 (1967), 175–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 ‘TARARE: Quel insensé législateur/Tenant deux coeurs à la torture/Des plus doux nœuds de la nature/Ne fit qu'un lien destructeur./Dans ces unions désastreuses/Il n'est plus de paternité./En brisant le nœud détesté/De deux âmes si malheureuses/Je sers l'état, mon siècle/Et la postérité.’ F–Po Mat. 18 [274 (6)].Google Scholar

47 Betzwieser, , Exotismus (see n. 2), 102–17.Google Scholar

48 See Salieri, , Tarare, III, 297ff.Google Scholar

49 No. 218 (Friday, 6 August 1790), 896.

50 5 August 1790.

51 Coy, Adelheid, Die Musik der franzärirchen Revolution (Munich, 1978), 17f.Google Scholar, and Pierre, Constant, Ler Hymnes et chansons de la Révolution (Paris, 1904), 489f.Google Scholar

52 Coy, , 34f.Google Scholar

53 Chansons patriotiques (Paris, [1794]), 32–6.Google Scholar I am indebted to Herbert Schneider for this reference.

54 It is based on the air ‘Daignez m'épargner tout le reste’ from Devienne's Les Vrritandines (1792).Google Scholar

55 See the printed libretto, Tarare, mélodrame en cinq actes … remis le 28 Messidor an 7 de la République … Edition conforme à la représentation, F-Pn ThB 1225 (1) B.

56 Heinzelmann, (see n. 10), loc. cit.Google Scholar