''Salammbô'' is an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

in five acts composed by

Ernest Reyer Louis Étienne Ernest Reyer (1 December 1823 – 15 January 1909) was a French opera composer and music critic. Biography Ernest Reyer was born in Marseille. His father, a notary, did not want his son to take up a career in music. However, he d ...

to a French

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 ...

Camille du Locle Camille du Locle (16 July 18329 October 1903) was a French theatre manager and a librettist. He was born in Orange, France. From 1862 he served as assistant to his father-in-law, Émile Perrin, at the Paris Opéra. From 1870, he was co-director a ...

. It is based on the homonymous novel by

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

(1862). Initially refused by Paris, Reyer's opera enjoyed its first performance at the

Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie (french: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, italic=no, ; nl, Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, italic=no; both translating as the "Royal Theatre of the Mint") is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National O ...

in Brussels, on 10 February 1890, with sets designed by Pierre Devis and Armand Lynen. The Parisian premiere at the

Palais Garnier The Palais Garnier (, Garnier Palace), also known as Opéra Garnier (, Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from ...

took place on 16 May 1892 with costumes by Eugène Lacoste and sets by

Eugène Carpezat Eugène Louis Carpezat (Paris, 4 November 1833 – Paris, 26 February 1912) was an acclaimed French scenographer in the Belle Époque. Career Carpezat was the son of lemonade makers Claude François Carpezat and Jacqueline Caniou. After conside ...

(Acts I and V),

Auguste Alfred Rubé Auguste Alfred Rubé (20 June 1817 – 13 April 1899) was a French painter. Biography Born in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, Rubé was an innovator in the field of theatrical set design. This "decorator of rare ingenuity", focused on a local ...

and

Philippe Chaperon Philippe Chaperon (2 February 1823 – 21 December 1906) was a French painter and scenic designer, particularly known for his work at the Paris Opera. He produced stage designs for the premieres of numerous 19th-century operas, including Verdi's ...

(Act II), and Amable and Eugène Gardy (Act IV). The American premiere was at the

French Opera House The French Opera House, or ''Théâtre de l'Opéra'', was an opera house in New Orleans. It was one of the city's landmarks from its opening in 1859 until it was destroyed by fire in 1919. It stood in the French Quarter at the uptown lake corner o ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

on 25 January 1900 with Lina Pacary in the title role. It was first performed in New York at the 'old' Metropolitan Opera House on 20 March 1901, with

Lucienne Bréval Lucienne Bréval (4 November 1869 – 15 August 1935) was a Swiss dramatic soprano who had a major international opera career from 1892 to 1918. Although she appeared throughout Europe and in the United States, Bréval spent most of her career p ...

in the title role, Albert Saléza,

Eustase Thomas-Salignac Eustase Thomas, known under the stage name Salignac or Thomas-Salignac (29 March 1867 – 6 November 1943 in the 7th arrondissement of Paris) was a French tenor and lyrical singing professor. Biography Born in Générac, Gard department, Eus ...

Marcel Journet Marcel Journet (25 July 1868 – 7 September 1933), was a French, bass, operatic singer. He enjoyed a prominent career in England, France and Italy, and appeared at the foremost American opera houses in New York City and Chicago. Biography ...

, Charles Gillibert,

Eugène Dufriche Eugène Dufriche (born 1848, date of death unknown) was a French baritone, who had a career on the operatic stage from the 1870s in Paris through to the 1900s in New York. Life and career Having studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Dufriche san ...

, and

Antonio Scotti Antonio Scotti (25 January 1866 – 26 February 1936) was an Italian baritone. He was a principal artist of the New York Metropolitan Opera for more than 33 seasons, but also sang with great success at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a ...

with

Luigi Mancinelli Luigi Mancinelli (; 5 February 1848 – 2 February 1921) was an Italian conductor, cellist and composer. His early career was in Italy, where he established a reputation in Perugia and then Bologna. After 1886 he worked mostly in other countr ...

conducting. Portions of the opera were performed in 1906 in the ancient Roman

Carthage amphitheatre The Carthage Amphitheatre was a Roman amphitheatre constructed in the first century CE in the city of Carthage, Tunisia, which was rebuilt by Dictator Julius Caesar and became the capital of Africa Proconsularis. Predation plaguing the archaeologi ...

during an event sponsored by the Carthage Institute, making it among the first pieces formally staged there since the structure was destroyed by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The ...

in AD 439. This rarely nowadays performed opera received the last performance at 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 ...

in 1943, and the most recent one in Marseilles on 27 September 2008, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Reyer's death.''Salammbô'', Opéra de Marseille, 9-27-08 Opera News The Met Opera Guild, accessed 20 April 2010
/ref>

Roles

Setting

*Place:

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

*Time: 240 BC

Other opera adaptations

In 1863,

Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...

also started writing text and music for an opera based on Flaubert's novel, but he never managed to complete the work. Other versions were written by V. Fornari (1881), Niccolò Massa (1886), Eugeniusz Morawski-Dąbrowa,

Josef Matthias Hauer Josef Matthias Hauer (March 19, 1883 – September 22, 1959) was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He is best known for developing, independent of and a year or two before Arnold Schoenberg, a method for composing with all 12 notes of th ...

(1930), Alfredo Cuscinà (1931), Veselin Stoyanov (1940) and Franco Casavola (1948). Contemporary French composer Philippe Fénélon's ''Salammbô'' was first performed at the

Opéra Bastille The Opéra Bastille (, "Bastille Opera House") is a modern opera house in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. Inaugurated in 1989 as part of President François Mitterrand's '' Grands Travaux'', it became the main facility of the Paris N ...

in 1998.

References

;Notes ;Sources * *Pauline Girard, ‘Ernest Reyer et la Monnaie : un malentendu?’, in ''La Monnaie symboliste'', ed. Manuel Couvreur and Roland Van der Hoeven (Brussels: ULB, 2003), 52-81. *Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages,

External links

* * Visual documentation of the Brussels premiere o
c.a.r.m.e.n.
* Visual documentation of the Parisian premiere o
Gallica
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salammbo (Reyer) Operas based on works by Gustave Flaubert Operas by Ernest Reyer French-language operas 1890 operas Operas Opera world premieres at La Monnaie Operas based on novels Operas set in Africa Phoenicia in fiction Works based on Salammbô

Roles

Setting

Other opera adaptations

See also

References

External links