''Fête Galante'' is an opera in one act composed by

Ethel Smyth Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth tended ...

to an English-language

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) 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 th ...

by Smyth and

Edward Shanks Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (11 June 1892 – 4 May 1953) was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. He also wrote some science fiction. E. F. Bleiler and R ...

based on

Maurice Baring Maurice Baring (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent, with particular knowledge of Russia. During Wo ...

's 1909 short story of the same name. It is a tale of late night

fête galante ''Fête galante'' () (courtship party) is a category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe Antoine Watteau's (1684–1721) variations on the theme of the fête champêtre, which featured figures in ball dress ...

involving aristocrats and a

commedia dell'arte Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Theatre of Italy, Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is a ...

troupe where jealousy, desire, and multiple masquerades end in the death of one of the characters. Described by the composer as a "Dance-dream", the opera premiered on 4 June 1923 at the

Birmingham Repertory Theatre Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre ...

Background

''Fête Galante'' was the fifth of Smyth's six operas and marked a return to the genre after a seven-year gap. World War I had forced the cancellation of several performances of her works in Europe, and especially Germany where three of her earlier operas were first performed. After '' The Boatswain's Mate'' premiered in 1916, she concentrated her efforts on the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

movement and on her writing, producing two books of memoirs. During that time, she was suffering from depression, the onset of deafness, and a loss of confidence in her abilities as a composer. After finishing her first volume of memoirs, ''Impressions That Remained'', in 1919 she approached her friend

for permission to set his short story "Fête Galante" as an opera, hoping that it would tempt her back into composing. He initially refused, but three months later gave his approval. By that time, her enthusiasm for composition had waned and she began work on her second volume of memoirs, ''Streaks of life''. However, she returned to the project in 1921 when she received a commission from the British National Opera Company. It was her first (and only) commissioned opera. The libretto was written by Smyth and the war poet

and closely follows Baring's story of a late night

in which the

Pierrot Pierrot ( , ; ), a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, has his origins in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a hypocorism, diminutive of ''Pierr ...

is hanged by a jealous king. Like '' Fantasio'', Smyth's earlier comic opera, ''Fête Galante'' involves mistaken identity and disguise, but is a much darker tale. Its title and themes of aristocratic open-air festivity, masquerade and

harked back to the operas of Rameau and Lully but were also echoed in the neoclassical works of Smyth's contemporaries

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, Busoni, and

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

. Smyth composed ''Fête Galante'' in a neoclassical style, incorporating baroque dances and a

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) and early Baroque (1580–1650) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the ...

set to a poem by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...

. It was to be her only foray into that idiom.

Roles

Recordings

A complete recording of ''Fête Galante'' b
Retrospect Opera
was released in November 2019. It is conducted by the renowned Smyth interpreter and champion, Odaline de la Martinez. Retrieved 25 September 2016.

References

Sources *Bernstein, Jane (1987)
"Shout, Shout, Up With Your Song! Dame Ethel Smyth and the Changing Role of the Woman Composer"
in Jane Bowers and Judith Tick (eds.) ''Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950'', pp. 304–324. University of Illinois Press *Pendle, Karin Anna (2001)
''Women and Music: A History''
p. 155. Indiana University Press *Wood, Elizabeth (1995). "'The Lesbian in the Opera: Desire Unmasked in Smyth's ''Fantasio'' and ''Fête Galante''" in Corinne E. Blackmer and Patricia Juliana Smith (eds.) ''En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera'', pp. 285–305. Columbia University Press.

External links

Maurice Baring's ''Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories'', including "Fête Galante"
(full text on

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applic ...

)
Retrospect Opera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fete Galante English-language operas Operas by Ethel Smyth 1923 operas Operas One-act operas