Le Cid (opera)
| Le Cid | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Jules Massenet | |
Original poster from 1885
|
|
| Librettist | |
| Language | French |
| Based on |
Le Cid by Pierre Corneille |
| Premiere | 30 November 1885 Paris Opéra |
Le Cid is an opera in four acts and ten tableaux by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, Édouard Blau and Adolphe d'Ennery. It is based on the play of the same name by Pierre Corneille.
It was first performed by a star-studded cast at the Paris Opéra on 30 November 1885 in the presence of President Grévy, with Jean de Reszke as Rodrigue. The staging was directed by Pedro Gailhard, with costumes designed by Comte Lepic, and sets by Eugène Carpezat (Act I), Enrico Robecchi and his student Amable (Act II), Auguste-Alfred Rubé, Philippe Chaperon and their student Marcel Jambon (Act III), and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (Act IV). The opera had been seen 150 times there by 1919 but faded from the repertory and was not performed again in Paris until the 2015 revival at the Palais Garnier. While the opera itself is not in the standard operatic repertory, the ballet suite is a popular concert and recording piece which includes dances from different regions of Spain.
After the premiere, the Paris Opera continued to revive Le Cid until 1919, reaching over 150 performances at the theatre by that date. A new production was mounted at the Opéra in the 2014-15 season, conducted by Michel Plasson with Roberto Alagna and Annick Massis among the principals.
Local premieres took place in Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Vienna in 1887, followed by Rome, New Orleans Geneva and Milan in the years following. In New York, the premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1897 was revived in 1901 and 1902, and a cut concert performance on 8 March 1976 at Carnegie Hall with Plácido Domingo and Grace Bumbry was later issued as a commercial recording. In Saint-Etienne it was produced in 1979 then at the 1994 Massenet Festival under Patrick Fournillier with Michele Command and Chris Merritt. Other modern productions include 1981 in San Francisco under Julius Rudel with Carol Neblett and William Lewis, 1984 and 1993 in Rouen, 1999 at Seville, and a 2001 production by the Washington Opera, starring Domingo, which was shown on PBS television, and was seen in Zurich in January 2008. In June 2011 the opera was staged at the Opéra de Marseille in a production directed by Charles Roubaud, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, with Roberto Alagna singing the role of Rodrigue. This production was seen in March–April 2015 at the Paris Opera where the opera had not been staged since 1919, conducted by Michel Plasson, with Alagna reprising the title role, alongside Sonia Ganassi and Annick Massis.
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