Pierre le Grand

Pierre le Grand (Peter the Great) is an opéra comique by André Grétry. The libretto, by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, is based on the early life of the Russian tsar Peter the Great. It was first performed in Paris on January 13, 1790, with Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre, known as Madame Dugazon, as Catherine.

For the 17th century French pirate, see Pierre le Grand (pirate).
Portrait of Peter I by Godfrey Kneller, 1698.

Roles
Role Voice type Premiere Cast,[1] January 13, 1790
(Conductor: - )
Peter the Great, Tsar of all Rus' tenor Philippe Cauvy, 'Philippe'
François Le Fort, a minister and a friend of the Tsar basse-taille (bass-baritone) Simon Chénard
Menshikoff, the governor of Moscow spoken Pierre-Philibert Granger
Catherine, a young widow who has retired in the Village soprano Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre, 'Madame Dugazon'
Georges-Morin, a master carpenter with whom there lodge Catherine, Peter the Great under the simple name of Pierre,
and Le Fort under the name of André		 basse-taille (bass-baritone) Pierre-Marie Narbonne[2]
Géneviève, Georges-Morin's wife soprano Françoise Carpentier,
'Madame Gonthier'
Caroline, Georges-Morin and Géneviève's daughter soprano Jeanne-Charlotte Schroeder, 'Madame Saint-Aubin'
Aléxis, a young orphan, son of a rich bailiff, in love with Caroline soprano Sophie Renaud ("Mlle Renault la jeune'")[3]
Maturin, an old man, great-uncle and guardian of Aléxis tenor Charles-Nicolas-Joseph-Justin Favart
The tabellion spoken (?) Jean-René Lecoupay de la Rosière, 'Rosière'

Synopsis

The plot tells how the young Tsar Peter disguised himself as a carpenter to work in a Russian shipyard where he fell in love with and married a peasant girl, Catherine (later the Empress Catherine I). Bouilly was working on his play at the time the French Revolution was breaking out in 1789 and the work reflects the political events of the day. Tsar Peter is intended to symbolise King Louis XVI, Catherine is Marie Antoinette and the Swiss Le Fort alludes to the Genevan financier Jacques Necker, who had attempted to reform the French economy. Peter and Catherine are depicted as ideal figures, deeply concerned for the welfare of the common people, and the liberal Bouilly clearly hoped the French king and queen would follow their example.

Recordings
  • (La jeunesse de) Pierre le Grand — Christophe Einhorn, Anne-Sophie Schmidt, Philippe Le Chevalier, Namur Chamber Choir, Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Olivier Opdebeeck (CD on Cascavelle or DVD on Disques DOM, 2001, live in Compiègne)
  • Pierre le Grand — Maxim Mironov, Elena Voznessenskaya, Nikolai Galin, Chorus and Orchestra of Helikon Opera, conducted by Sergey Stadler (DVD on Arthaus, 101 097, shot in Moscow in 2002)

References
Notes
  1. According to the original libretto. The full names of the performers are drawn mostly from Campardon.
  2. Sources will refer to this singer stating simply his surname 'Narbonne'. Campardon does not report any first name, either, in his work on the 'comédiens italiens' cited below (article: Narbonne, II, p. 29), whereas the name 'Pierre-Marie' is set forth in his later book on the Académie Royale de Musique, where Narbonne began his career (L'Académie Royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1884, II, p. 193). The name 'Louis' is given instead by Georges de Froidcourt in his collection of Grétry's correspondence (La correspondance générale de Grétry, Bruxelles, Brepols, 1962, p. 145, footnote 8).
  3. According to Campardon and François-Joseph Fétis (Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique (volume 7), Paris, Didot, 1866, p. 229; accessible for free online at Gallica - B.N.F.) the family name was spelt 'Renaud'. There were another two sisters Renaud, 'l'Ainée' (the elder) and 'la Cadette' (the younger), acting at the Comédie Italienne towards the end of the eighties (Campardon, article Renaud (Mlles), II, pp. 78-82).
Sources
  • Campardon, Émile (ed), Les Comédiens du roi de la troupe italienne pendant les deux derniers siècles: documents inédits recueillis aux Archives Nationales, Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1880 (accessible for free online at Internet Archive: Volume I (A-L); Volume II (M-Z))
  • Original libretto: Pierre le Grand, Comédie en Quatre Actes, Et en Prose, melée de Chants, Tours, Legier, 1790 (accessible online as a Google ebook-gratis).
  • Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."Pierre le Grand". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  • Kehrmann, Boris: Booklet notes to the DVD recording.
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