Richard Coeur-de-lion (opera)

Richard Cœur-de-lion (Richard the Lionheart) is an opéra comique, described as a comédie mise en musique, by the Belgian composer André Grétry. The French text was by Michel-Jean Sedaine. The work is generally recognised as Grétry's masterpiece and one of the most important French opéras comiques. It is based on a legend about King Richard I of England's captivity in Austria and his rescue by the troubadour Blondel de Nesle.

It was first performed in three acts by the Comédie-Italienne at the first Salle Favart in Paris on 21 October 1784. It was given in a revised four-act version at Fontainebleau on 25 October 1785. The opera reached the United Kingdom in 1786 and Boston, USA in 1797. It was immensely popular and was still being played in France at the end of the 19th century. Adolphe Adam provided new orchestration for the 1841 revival at the Opéra-Comique and through the following decades reached over 600 performances by that company by 1910.

A translated semi-opera version of Sedaine's work Richard Cœur de lion was written by John Burgoyne with music by Thomas Linley the elder for the Drury Lane Theatre where it was very successful in 1788.

Richard Cœur-de-lion played an important role in the development of opéra comique in its treatment of a serious, historical subject. It was also one of the first rescue operas. Significantly, one of the chief characters in the most famous rescue opera of all, Beethoven's Fidelio, is called Florestan, though he is the prisoner not the jailor. Grétry attempted to imitate Medieval music in Blondel's song Une fièvre brûlante and his example would be followed by composers of the Romantic era. (Beethoven wrote a set of piano variations on the song, WoO. 72.) He also used the same melody as a recurring theme, a technique developed by later composers of opéra comique such as Méhul and Cherubini. Through them it would influence the German tradition of Weber and Wagner.

...
Wikipedia