Don Sanche

Don Sanche, ou Le château de l'amour (English: Don Sanche, or The Castle of Love), S.1, is an opera in one act composed in 1824-25 by Franz Liszt, with French libretto by Théaulon and de Rancé, based on a story by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. For 30 years it was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1903. The first modern performance took place in 1977, 74 years after its rediscovery.

The opera appears to have been ready as early as September 1824. It is known that on 20 June 1825, Liszt presented an overture in his second Birmingham concert. This is probably the one from Don Sanche since no other overture exists from this period. The manuscript contains many passages that are reminiscent of the style of his compositions teacher Ferdinando Paer, who admittedly helped Liszt with orchestration. Liszt received a mere 170 francs for his opera (approximately 2100 dollars in 2016 USD). Later in the 1840s, Liszt tried to pursue a career as an opera composer. He planned, sketched, but never completed several other operas. Among them a work in the Italianate style known as Sardanapale, of which 111 sketched pages exists.

Don Sanche premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra on 17 October 1825 with Rodolphe Kreutzer conducting. Liszt was a few days short of 14 years at the time of the premiere. Lina Ramann, his biographer, wrote:

Reviews were mixed. In 1826, Almanach des Spectacles declared that "this work has to be judged with indulgence." In reply to his biographer, when asked about the overture of Don Sanche in 1880, Liszt said that if the lost opera would ever come to light it ought not be published "since it was nothing, it became nothing." The opera was not well received, and only 4 performances took place. The opera was not staged again for more than 150 years.

The manuscript was believed to have perished in the 1873 fire of Salle Peletier. However, in 1903 the French scholar Jean Chantavoine found the manuscript score of the opera bound in two volumes in the library of Palais Garnier. The score is not copied in Liszt's hand, contains extensive rehearsal markings and passages reminiscent of Paer, all of which led Emil Haraszti, a music critic, to declare that the opera was not by Liszt at all but a production by Paer only. He could not bring himself to believe that a 13-year-old boy could produce such a relatively polished work. However, Adam Liszt disclosed so many details to Carl Czerny about his son's opera-in-progress that such claims are preposterous.

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