''La mort d'Adam'' is a

tragédie lyrique This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

on a biblical theme in 3 acts by

Jean-François Le Sueur Jean-François Le Sueur (more commonly Lesueur; ) (15 February 17606 October 1837) was a French composer, best known for his oratorios and operas. Life He was born at Plessiel, a hamlet of Drucat near Abbeville, to a long-established family of ...

with a French libretto by

Nicolas-François Guillard Nicolas-François Guillard (16 January 1752 – 26 December 1814) was a French librettist. He was born in Chartres and died in Paris, the recipient of a government pension in recognition of his work writing librettos. He was also on ''Comité de ...

after

Klopstock Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (; 2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803) was a German poet. His best known work is the epic poem ''Der Messias'' ("The Messiah"). One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outsid ...

, first performed in 1809, though written a few years earlier.

Composition and performance history

Le Sueur wrote the opera while working as an instructor at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris. The opera was initially scheduled to be performed at the Conservatoire but was dropped in favor of

Charles-Simon Catel Charles-Simon Catel (10 June 1773 – 29 November 1830) was a French composer and educator born at L'Aigle, Orne. Biography Catel studied at the Royal School of Singing in Paris. He was the chief assistant to François-Joseph Gossec at the or ...

's '' Sémiramis''. Upset over this decision, Le Sueur published anonymously a pamphlet entitled , in which he harshly criticized the methods of instruction followed at the Conservatoire, his rival Catel, and Catel's patron, the director of the Conservatoire. Le Sueur was subsequently fired from the Conservatoire on 23 September 1802, and the composer lived in a state of poverty for about a year before he became to the

First Consul The Consulate (french: Le Consulat) was the top-level Government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term ''The Co ...

in Paris in early 1804. Eventually, Le Sueur was able to mount a production of ''La mort d'Adam''. The opera was first performed at the Académie impériale in Paris on 21 March 1809, with a choreography by Louis-Jacques Milon (act 1) and Pierre-Gabriel Gardel (acts 2, 3), "but it failed to arouse much enthusiasm and had to be dropped from the repertory permanently on 4 February 1810 after 16 performances".

Winton Dean Winton Basil Dean (18 March 1916 – 19 December 2013) was an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research on the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of George Frideric Handel, as detailed in his boo ...

argues that the opera had a great influence on Berlioz, Le Sueur's pupil shortly after the full score was published, and that "certain elements in Berlioz's style can be explained only by reference to Le Sueur". He points to the distinction between a grand overall design and a restrained, classical means of musical utterance, and to the sequence of separate tableaux of dramatic power with connecting narratives omitted or just implicit; in addition, there are and a in ''La mort d'Adam''. Le Sueur annotated his score, in French and Italian, with explanations about the musical language in antiquity which he had incorporated into his work, and some of these devices are found in later works by Berlioz, such as '' Les Troyens'' and '' L'enfance du Christ''. Dean, Winton. ''The New Oxford History of Music'' (ed.

Gerald Abraham Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham, (9 March 1904 – 18 March 1988) was an English-Jewish musicologist, editor and music critic. He was particularly respected as an authority on Russian music. Early career and author Abraham was born at Newport, Isl ...

) – The Age of Beethoven 1790–1820, II French Opera. Oxford University Press, London, 1982, pp. 88–90.

Roles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mort d'Adam, La Operas French-language operas 1809 operas Operas by Jean-François Le Sueur Operas based on the Bible Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve Libretti by Nicolas-François Guillard