''Le cadi dupé'' (''The Duped

Qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a ''sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and minor ...

'', or ''The Duped Judge'') is an

opéra comique ''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular '' opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a l ...

in one act by

Christoph Willibald Gluck Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...

. It has a

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...

libretto by Pierre-René Lemonnier. It premiered at the

Burgtheater The Burgtheater (literally:"Castle Theater" but alternatively translated as "(Imperial) Court Theater"), originally known as '' K.K. Theater an der Burg'', then until 1918 as the ''K.K. Hofburgtheater'', is the national theater of Austria in ...

in Vienna on 8 December 1761. The libretto had already been set by

Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny ( – ) was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (1813). He is considered alongside André Grétry and François-André Danican Philidor to have been the founder of a new musical ge ...

in an opera that had premiered on 4 February of the same year at the Paris Foire St-Germain. The music belongs to the Turkish-influenced fashion of the period and features janissary music, represented by

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the s ...

, drums, and cymbals.

Roles

Synopsis

The Cadi has been flirting with other women and neglecting his wife, Fatima. The mischievous Zelmire, who is in love with Nuradin, tricks the Cadi in order to teach him a lesson. She pretends to be Omar's daughter, Ali, who is considered less than desirable. The duped Cadi plans to divorce Fatima in order to marry the pretending Zelmire, but the truth is eventually revealed.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Original Paris libretto: ''Le Cadi dupé, Opera-comique en un acte par l'Auteur du Maître en Droit, Répresenté pour la premiere fois sur le Théâtre de l'Opera-Comique de la Foire S. Germain, le 4 Fevrier 1761'', Paris, Duchesne, 1761 (a copy a
books-google
*Bruce Alan Brown, ''Cadi dupé, Le'', in Stanley Sadie (ed.), ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', Grove (Oxford University Press), New York, 1997, I, p. 675,

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cadi dupe French-language operas Operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck Opéras comiques One-act operas Operas 1761 operas Opera world premieres at the Burgtheater