''La jacquerie'' is a four-act opera commenced by

Édouard Lalo Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27 January 182322 April 1892) was a French composer. His most celebrated piece is the ''Symphonie espagnole'', a five-movement concerto for violin and orchestra, which remains a popular work in the standard reper ...

in 1889 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 ...

Édouard Blau Édouard Blau (30 May 1836 – 7 January 1906) was a French dramatist and opera librettist. He was a cousin of Alfred Blau, another librettist of the same period.Smith C. Édouard Blau. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, Londo ...

and Simone Arnaud, based on the 1828 play of the same name by

Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...

. The opera was unfinished when Lalo died in 1892, and it was completed by

Arthur Coquard Arthur Coquard (26 May 1846 – 20 August 1910)Baker, Theodore; rev. by Nicolas Slonimsky (1978) ''Baker's Biographical dictionary of musicians - 6th ed.'' New York: Schirmer Books, 348. was a French composer and music critic. He studied comp ...

. The first performance was at the

Opéra de Monte-Carlo The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house which is part of the Monte Carlo Casino located in the Principality of Monaco. With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des ba ...

on 9 March 1895.

Creation

''La jacquerie'' would have been Lalo's third opera (following ''

Fiesque ''Fiesque'' (''The Genoese Conspiracy'') is an opera in three acts by the French composer Édouard Lalo. The libretto, by Charles Beauquier, is based on Schiller's 1784 play, '' Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua'', an account of the conspira ...

'' (1868) and ''

Le roi d'Ys ' (''The King of Ys'') is an opera in three acts and five tableaux by the French composer Édouard Lalo, to a libretto by Édouard Blau, based on the old Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys. That city was, according to the legend, the capita ...

'' (1888)). Lalo died after having completed only the first act. Coquard, a pupil of

César Franck César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium. He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was p ...

, was requested by the director of the Monte-Carlo Opera,

Raoul Gunsbourg Raoul Samuel Gunsbourg (born January 6, 1860 in Bucharest - died May 31, 1955 in Monte Carlo) was a Jewish- Romania-bornBorn in Bucharest, Gunsbourg is a son of a French father and Romanian mother. His grandfather was a rabbi. opera director, ...

, to compose the rest. Alexandre Dratwicki notes that the opera bears traces both of

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

and of

Giacomo Meyerbeer Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le di ...

(in particular the latter's ''

Les Huguenots () is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer and is one of the most popular and spectacular examples of grand opera. In five acts, to a libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work suc ...

.'')

Roles

Synopsis

There are four acts, each of about 20 minutes. The opera is set in 1358, during the

Jacquerie The Jacquerie () was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt was centred in the valley of the Oise north of Paris and was suppressed after a few week ...

uprisings, in the village of Saint-Len de Cérent. Robert is in love with the aristocratic Blanche. Seeking to protect her from the mob he is wounded by them and dies in Blanche's arms.

Performances

After its premiere in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

the opera was performed at

Aix-les-bains Aix-les-Bains (, ; frp, Èx-los-Bens; la, Aquae Gratianae), locally simply Aix, is a commune in the southeastern French department of Savoie.

in September and at the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...

in Paris in December 1895. A critic wrote of it that the music was "small, but noisy". After this, the opera appears to have been ignored for over a century, but was given some performances in France in 2015.

Recording

With

Véronique Gens Véronique Gens (born 19 April 1966) is a French operatic soprano. She has spent much of her career recording and performing Baroque music, Baroque music. Gens was born in Orléans, France, and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning fir ...

(Blanche de Sainte-Croix),

Nora Gubisch Nora Gubisch (born Paris, 1971) is a French operatic mezzo-soprano. ...

(Jeanne),

Charles Castronovo Charles Castronovo (born June 19, 1975) is an American operatic tenor. Castronovo was born to a Sicilian father and an Ecuadorian mother in Queens, New York, but grew up in Southern California. He attended California State University, Fullerton, f ...

(Robert), Boris Pinkhasovich (Guillaume), Jean-Sébastien Bou (Le Comte de Sainte-Croix), Patrick Bolleire (Le Sénéchal), Enguerrand de Hys (Le Baron de Savigny). Choeur de Radio France,

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France is a French radio orchestra, affiliated with Radio France. The orchestra performs principally at the auditorium of the Maison de la Radio in Paris, along with several concerts at the Philharmonie de Pa ...

, conducted by Patrick Davin. Released 2016. CD Ediciones Singulares Cat:ES1023.

References

;Notes ; Sources *Anon (2015)
"Edouard Lalo (1823-1892) between folklore and Wagnerism"
website of the Bru-Zane Foundation, accessed 3 October 2015. * Dratwicki, Alexandre (2015)
"Conaissez-vous la jacquerie?"
on

Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed with a wide variety of ...

website, accessed 3 October 2015 * Lalo, Édouard and Arthur Coquard (1894)
''La jacquarie'' - vocal score
Paris: Choudens. Accessed on

IMSLP The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki software ...

website, 3 October 2015. * L. K. (1895)
"Coquard's 'La Jacquerie' "
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', accessed 3 October 2015 * Philipp, Isidor (1895)
"La Jacquerie" (review)
in ''

Le Ménestrel ''Le Ménestrel'' (The Minstrel) was an influential French music journal published weekly from 1833 until 1940. It was founded by Joseph-Hippolyte l'Henry and originally printed by Poussièlgue. In 1840 it was acquired by the music publishers Heu ...

'', Year 61 no.11 (17 March 1895), pp. 82–3, accessed 3 October 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:jacquerie, La Operas French-language operas 1895 operas Unfinished operas Operas completed by others Operas set in France Operas set in the 14th century Operas by Édouard Lalo Opera world premieres at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo Operas based on works by Prosper Mérimée