La muette de Portici

The opera was first given at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra on 29 February 1828.[2] The role of Masaniello was taken by the famous tenor Adolphe Nourrit and Princess Elvire was sung by Laure Cinti-Damoreau. The dancer Lise Noblet played the mute title role, a part later taken by other dancers such as Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler and Pauline Leroux, also the actress Harriet Smithson (the future wife of Hector Berlioz). Alphonse was created by Alexis Dupont, who was Lise Noblet's brother-in-law. The conductor at the premiere was Henri Valentino.[3]

La muette was innovative in several ways. First, it marked the introduction into opera of mime and gesture as an integral part of an opera plot (these aspects were already familiar to Parisian audiences from ballet and mélodrame).[4] Additionally, the historic setting, liberal political implications, use of popular melodies, handling of large orchestra and chorus, and spectacular stage effects immediately marked this opera as different from preceding types, later earning it the title of the first of the genre of "grand opera". The journal Pandore commented after the premiere, "for a long time, enlightened critics have thought that alongside the old tragédie lyrique it was possible to have a more realistic and natural drama which might suit the dignity of this theatre."[5] The new genre was consolidated by Rossini's Guillaume Tell (1829) and Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831).

Richard Wagner remarked, in his 1871 Reminiscences of Auber, that the opera "whose very representation had brought [revolutions] about, was recognised as an obvious precursor of the July Revolution, and seldom has an artistic product stood in closer connection with a world-event."[6] La muette was revived in Paris immediately after the French July Revolution of 1830.

Belgian revolution

The Théâtre de la Monnaie (Muntschouwburg) where the performance of 25 August 1830 sparked riots leading to the Belgian Revolution

The opera was chosen for a performance at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels on 25 August 1830, as part of King William I's festival in celebration of the 15th year of his reign. The opera would cap the three-day festival of fireworks, feasts, and processions. William I had been present at the Brussels premiere of the opera in 1829, and it enjoyed several successful performances in the city. When nationalist disturbances occurred during a performance around the time of the July Revolution in Paris, the opera was temporarily banned. The ban was lifted for the 25 August performance.[7]

The King's festival announcement was met with open plans for revolt. Posters were put up around Brussels that advertised, "Monday, the 23rd, fireworks; Tuesday, the 24th, illuminations; Wednesday, the 25th, revolution."[8] However, the King's only concession to public safety was to cancel the fireworks and procession on the final night, which left Auber's opera as the last public event in the king's honor. Though the subject of the opera is revolution, its role in the riots may have been more a marriage of convenience because the rebels had pre-ordained the final day of the festival as the start of the Belgian Revolution.[9]

Prior to the performance of Auber's opera, the Courrier des Pays-Bas newspaper issued a coded call for attendees to leave prior to the fifth act.[10] There are some disagreements about when in the opera the exodus actually began, but the most commonly cited moment is the second act duet "Amour sacré de la patrie".[11] One contemporary account describes what happened in the theater during the duet:

When Lafeuillade and Cassel began singing the celebrated duet. "Amour sacre de la patrie" enthusiasm exploded irresistibly and [the singers] found it necessary to start afresh in the midst of the cheering. Finally, when Masaniello (Lafeuillade) launched into his entreaty, the invocation Aux armes!, the public could no longer be restrained. They acclaimed aria and actor, they booed the fifth act in order to stop the performance, and the delirious crowd [hurled itself] out of the hall—into history. Welcomed by the other crowd which waited outside, it joined in the demonstrations which loosed the revolution of 1830.[12]

The opera is loosely based on the historical uprising of Masaniello against Spanish rule in Naples in 1647. The character of Fenella, the opera's eponymous heroine, was borrowed from Walter Scott's Peveril of the Peak, which features a deaf and dumb dwarf of the same name.[18]

Act 5

Before the Viceroy's palace

La muette de Portici, the eruption of the volcano, 1893 production

In a gathering of fishermen, Pietro confides to Moreno that he has administered poison to Masaniello, in order to punish him for his treason, and that the King of one day will soon die. While he speaks, Borella rushes in to tell of a fresh troop of soldiers, marching against the people with Alfonso at their head. Knowing that Masaniello alone can save them, the fishermen entreat him to take the command of them once more and Masaniello, though deadly ill and half bereft of his reason, complies with their request. The combat takes place, while an eruption of Vesuvius is going on. Masaniello falls in the act of saving Elvire's life. On hearing these terrible tidings Fanella rushes to the terrace, from which she leaps into the abyss beneath, while the fugitive noblemen take again possession of the city.[19]

La muette de Portici played a major role in establishing the genre of grand opera. Many of its elements – the five-act structure, the obligatory ballet sequence, the use of spectacular stage effects, the focus on romantic passions against a background of historical troubles – would become the standard features of the form for the rest of the 19th century. Grand opera would play a far more important role in the subsequent career of the librettist than that of the composer. Auber went on to write three more works in the genre: Le Dieu et la bayadère (1830), Gustave III (1833) and Le lac des fées (1839). But their fame would be eclipsed by the grand operas for which Scribe provided the libretti: Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836) and Halévy's La Juive (1835). Nevertheless, Auber's pioneering work caught the attention of the young Richard Wagner, who was eager to create a new form of music drama. He noted that in La muette, "arias and duets in the wonted sense were scarcely to be detected any more, and certainly, with the exception of a single prima-donna aria in the first act, did not strike one at all as such; in each instance it was the ensemble of the whole act that riveted attention and carried one away...".[20]

It also played a large role in the founding of the Kingdom of Belgium. The riots that led to the independence started after hearing the opera.

This opera is the inspiration for Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem "Fenella's Escape". published in The Keepsake, 1836.

The material has been used for several films: the American silent film The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916), the German silent film Die Stumme von Portici, the Italian film La muta di Portici (1952).

• La muette de Portici: June Anderson, Alfredo Kraus, John Aler, Ensemble Choral Jean Laforge, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, conducted by Thomas Fulton, recorded in September 1986 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo (EMI). OCLC 605508655. 2 Hours 29 Mins.
• La muette de Portici Oscar de la Torre (tenor) – Alphonse, Angelina Ruzzafante (soprano) – Elvire, Angus Wood (tenor) – Lorenzo, Ulf Paulsen (baritone) – Selva, Anne Weinkauf (mezzo) – Eine Holdame, Diego Torre (tenor) – Masaniello, Wiard Witholt (bass) – Pietro, Kostadin Arguirov (baritone) – Borella, Stephan Biener (bass) – Moreno; Opernchor des Anhaltischen Theaters, Anhaltische Philharmonie/Anthony Hermus; recorded 24–26 May 2011, Großes Haus of the Anhaltisches Theater, Dessau, Germany CPO 777 694-2 [65:47 + 69:32]

Notes

Sources

• Auber, Daniel (1828). La muette de Portici, full score. Paris: E. Troupenas. OCLC 21809057. Copy at Gallica.
• Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."La muette de Portici, 29 February 1828". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
• Chouquet, Gustave (1889). "Valentino, Henri Justin Armand Joseph". A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (4 volumes). Vol. 4. London: Macmillan.
• Cooper, Jeffrey; Ellis, Katharine (2001). "Valentino, Henri Justin Armand Joseph". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (hardcover) (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 9781561592395. OCLC 419285866.
• Gourret, Jean (1982). Dictionnaire des chanteurs de l'Opéra de Paris. Paris: Albatros. OCLC 10018314.
• Hibberd, Sarah (2003). "La Muette and her context". In David Charlton (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Kutsch, Karl-Josef; Riemens, Leo (2002). Großes Sängerlexikon (in German) (fourth ed.). Munich: K. G. Saur. ISBN 9783598115981.
• Lajarte, Théodore de (1878). Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'Opéra. Vol. 2 [1793–1876]. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles..
• Loewenberg, Alfred (1978). Annals of Opera 1597–1940 (third, revised ed.). Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 9780874718515.
• Mallinson, Vernon (1970). Belgium. Praeger.
• Parouty, Michel. Fulton recording (Media notes).
• Pougin, Arthur (1880). "Valentino (Henri-Justin-Joseph)". Biographie universelle des musiciens et Bibliographie générale de la musique par F.-J. Fétis (Supplément et complément). Vol. 2. Paris: Firmin-Didot.
• Schneider, Herbert (1992). "Muette de Portici, La". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Vol. 3. London. pp. 505–507. ISBN 0-333-73432-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Scribe, Eugène (1875). Oeuvres complètes: Operas, Ballets. Paris: E. Dentu. Copy at HathiTrust; copy at Google Books.
• Slatin, Sonia (1979). "Opera and Revolution: La Muette de Portici and the Belgian Revolution of 1830 Revisited". Journal of Musicological Research. 3 (3): 45–62. doi:10.1080/01411897908574506.
• Tamvaco, Jean-Louis (2000). Les Cancans de l'Opéra. Chroniques de l'Académie Royale de Musique et du théâtre, à Paris sous les deux restorations (2 volumes) (in French). Paris: CNRS Editions. ISBN 978-2-271-05685-6.
• Wagner, Richard (1966). Prose Works. Vol. 5. Translated by W. Ashton Ellis. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Wolff, Stéphane (1962; reprint 1983). L'Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962). Paris: Deposé au journal L'Entr'acte OCLC 7068320, 460748195. Paris: Slatkine (1983) ISBN 9782050002142.

• Macdonald, Hugh (2001). "Daniel Auber". In Amanda Holden (ed.). The New Penguin Opera Guide. New York: Penguin Putnam. pp. 24–26. ISBN 0-14-029312-4.
• Mondelli, Peter (2013). "The Sociability of History in French Grand Opera: A Historical Materialist Perspective", in 19th Century Music vol. 37, no. 1.
• Parker, Roger, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Oxford University Press, 1994
• Renieu, Lionel, L'Histoire des Théâtres de Bruxelles: depuis leur origine jusqu'à ce jour, Duchartre & Van Buggenhoudt, 1928.
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera New York: Oxford University Press: 1992 ISBN 0-19-869164-5

Wikimedia Commons has media related to La muette de Portici.

French Wikisource has original text related to this article:

La Muette de Portici

• La muette de Portici: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• The Standard Opera Glass Synopsis
• La muette de Portici, French libretto (Brussels, 1833) at Google Books
• Masaniello, ovvero, La muta di Portici, Italian libretto (Palermo, 1860) at Google Books
• Masaniello, English and Italian libretto (Boston, 1865) at Google Books
• The Escape of Fenella., a painting by Alfred Edward Chalon of a scene from the opera, engraved by J. C. Edwards for The Keepsake annual, 1836, combined with a poetical illustration (Fenella’s Escape) by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.