''Guido et Ginevra, ou La Peste de Florence'' (French: ''Guido and Ginevra, or the
Plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pes ...
at
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
'') is a
grand opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on o ...
in five acts by
Fromental Halévy
Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy (; 27 May 179917 March 1862), was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera '' La Juive''.
Early career
Halévy was born in Paris, son of the cantor ...
to a
libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
by
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of man ...
. It was premiered on 5 March 1838 by the
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...
at the
Salle Le Peletier
The Salle Le Peletier or Lepeletier (sometimes referred to as the Salle de la rue Le Peletier or the Opéra Le Peletier) was the home of the Paris Opera from 1821 until the building was destroyed by fire in 1873. The theatre was designed and con ...
.
Performance history
''Guido et Ginevra'' was only a moderate success for Halévy, not nearly as applauded as his previous grand opera ''
La Juive
''La Juive'' () (''The Jewess'') is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835.
Composition history
''La Juive'' was one of t ...
'' (1835) or as ''
La reine de Chypre
''La reine de Chypre'' (''The Queen of Cyprus'') is an 1841 grand opera in five acts composed by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.
Performance history
''La reine de Chypre'', first performed at the Salle Le ...
'' which followed it (1841). However, after its premiere it was soon played in all the major European centres. When the opera was revived in Paris in 1840 it was cut to four acts. It was translated into Italian and performed in three acts by the
Théâtre-Italien at the
Salle Ventadour
The Salle Ventadour, a former Parisian theatre in the rue Neuve-Ventadour, now the rue Méhul (2nd arrondissement of Paris), was built between 1826 and 1829 for the Opéra-Comique, to designs by Jacques-Marie Huvé, a prominent architect. The ori ...
beginning on 17 February 1870. It was performed in German in
Mannheim
Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...
beginning on 3 April 1879, and
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, on 20 March 1882.
[Loewenberg 1978, column795.] No recent productions are known.
The opera contains touches of the composer's innovative
orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orc ...
, with a
mélophone in Act II, and with Ginevra's tomb scene set to dark woodwind and brass instruments using
diminished seventh
In classical music from Western culture, a diminished seventh () is an interval produced by narrowing a minor seventh by a chromatic semitone.Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I'', p.54. . Specific example of an d7 ...
harmonies.
Roles
Synopsis
''Scribe drew the elements of his plot from the history of Florence by Louis-Charles Delécluze''
Act 1
''The Medici court''
Ginevra is to be married to the Duke of Ferrara.
Act 2
During the ceremony, a poisoned veil she has been given causes her to faint away in a deathlike trance; the sculptor Guido mourns her. It is assumed that she has the plague.
Act 3
''The Medici vault''
Buried in the Medici vault she awakes.
Act 4
Guido offers her shelter.
Act 5
''The village of
Camaldoli
Camaldoli () is a ''frazione'' of the ''comune'' of Poppi, in Tuscany, Italy. It is mostly known as the ancestral seat of the Camaldolese monastic order, originated in the eponymous hermitage, which can still be visited. The name was derived from ...
''
Ginevra is reunited with her father, who agrees to her marriage with Guido. A procession of thanksgiving ends the opera.
References
Notes
Sources
*
Chouquet, Gustave
Gustave Chouquet (16 April 1819 – 30 January 1886)Grove & Charlton 2001. was a French music historian, music critic, and teacher of French.
Early life and career
Born Adolphe-Gustave Chouquet in Le Havre, he spent six years in Paris studying ...
(1873). ''Histoire de la musique dramatique en France'' (in French), pp. 309–425. Paris: Didot. View at
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
* Hallman, Diana (2003). "The Grand Operas of Fromental Halévy", in ''
The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera'', ed. David Charlton.
* Loewenberg, Alfred (1978). ''Annals of Opera 1597–1940'' (third edition, revised). Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. .
* Macdonald, Hugh (2001). ''Guido et Ginevra'', article in
Grove Music Online
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guido Et Ginvera
Operas
Grand operas
1838 operas
Operas set in Florence
Operas by Fromental Halévy
French-language operas
Opera world premieres at the Paris Opera
Libretti by Eugène Scribe