The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
Edited and Introduced by
Robert Ignatius Letellier
The Overtures of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber,
Edited and Introduced by Robert Ignatius Letellier
This book first published 2011
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2011 by Robert Ignatius Letellier
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
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without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-2702-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2702-7
D. F. E. Auber (c. 1860). Lithograph by Aug. Lemoine after a photograph by Erwin
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................................................................. ix
The Overtures......................................................................................................... xv
1. La Bergère Châtelaine.......................................................................................... 1
2. Emma ................................................................................................................... 9
3. Leicester, ou Le Château de Kenilworth ............................................................. 17
4. La Neige, ou Le Nouveau Eginard ...................................................................... 27
5. Le Concert à la cour, ou La Débutante ............................................................... 33
6. Léocadie............................................................................................................. 47
7. Le Maçon ........................................................................................................... 57
8. Le Timide ........................................................................................................... 63
9. Fiorella .............................................................................................................. 91
10. La Muette de Portici ....................................................................................... 103
11. La Fiancée...................................................................................................... 113
12. Fra Diavolo, ou L’Hôtellerie de Terracina ..................................................... 123
13. Le Dieu et la Bayadère ................................................................................... 133
14. Le Philtre ....................................................................................................... 143
15. Le Serment, ou Les Faux Monnayeurs ............................................................ 153
16. Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque ........................................................................ 165
17. Lestocq, ou L' Intrigue et l' amour .................................................................. 177
18. Le Cheval de Bronze....................................................................................... 187
19. Actéon ............................................................................................................ 197
20. Les Chaperons Blancs .................................................................................... 205
21. L’Ambassadrice.............................................................................................. 215
22. Le Domino noir .............................................................................................. 223
23. Le Lac des fees ............................................................................................... 233
24. Zanetta, ou Il ne faut pas jouer avec le feu...................................................... 247
25. Les Diamants de la couronne.......................................................................... 259
26. Le Duc d’Olonne ............................................................................................ 267
27. La Part du Diable, ou Carlo Broschi .............................................................. 275
28. La Sirène ........................................................................................................ 287
29. La Barcarole, ou L’Amour et la Musique........................................................ 297
30. Haydée, ou Le Secret ...................................................................................... 307
31. L’Enfant Prodigue .......................................................................................... 317
32. Zerline, ou La Corbeille d’oranges ................................................................. 329
33. Marco Spada .................................................................................................. 339
34. Jenny Bell....................................................................................................... 351
35. Manon Lescaut ............................................................................................... 363
36. La Circassienne.............................................................................................. 377
37. La Fiancée du Roi de Garbe ........................................................................... 391
38. Le Premier Jour de bonheur ........................................................................... 403
39. Rêve d’Amour................................................................................................. 415
40. Grande Ouverture composée pour l’auguration de l’Exposition de Londres ... 425
INTRODUCTION
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871), the most amiable French composer of
the 19th century, came into his compositional abilities late in life. After Le Maçon
(1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828), his life was filled with success. In 1829 he
was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842
Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in
1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur.
His equable and balanced temperament was reflected in his musical attitudes.
While working almost exclusively in musical drama, he avoided any excess of
emotion, never taking feelings to the pitch of intensity. He remained within the limits
of the discreetly nuanced tones that reflected his own life, his own very particular
Parisian elegance. Although criticized for his limitations, he was able to infuse his
music with its own very delicate perfumes, be it of the incensed piety of the nuns in
Le Domino noir, or the freshness of an Easter morning chorus in Fra Diavolo. He
could conjure up the lives of the townspeople of Naples and the ferocity of Vesuvius
in eruption in La Muette de Portici, or the impassive splendor of the Venetian state in
its glory in Haydée. He was also capable of some surprising emotional exploration:
the love of the fisherman Masaniello for his wronged, disabled sister Fenella in La
Muette, the searing doubts of a monarch in love with his trusted friend’s wife in
Gustave III, or a man racked by dark unresolved issues from his past in Haydée.
Auber died on 12 May 1871 in advanced old age, and in the pitiful conditions of
civil strife, after a long and painful illness which worsened during the Siege of Paris at
the time of the Commune. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved
despite the dangers and privation. His elegant and restrained art now has little interest
for the world of music, attuned as it is to the meatier substance of verismo, high
Wagnerian ideology, and the excoriations of the twentieth century. But he was once a
household name, and his pared style, with its fleet rhythms and controlled emotion,
was once a byword of taste and the focus of a universal affection.
The ubiquity of Auber’s overtures, once as popular as those of Rossini and Suppé,
and the influence of his melodies and dance rhythms on piano and instrumental music,
and on Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany, was overwhelming. The operas
themselves have virtually passed out of the repertoire, but some of their overtures live
on vicariously, and sound fresh and charming when given the chance—The Bronze
Horse, Masaniello, The Crown Diamonds, Fra Diavolo, The Black Domino.
The overture tradition
The first part of the 19th century saw four types of overture: the symphonic, with
three contrasting ideas in loosely knit passages of various texture (like Gluck’s
Iphigenie en Aulis); a piece of two to three ideas preceded by a slow introduction,
composed in the allegro according to the sonata form; a simple prelude often extended
into the first scene of the opera; and the extended concert overture developed by
Beethoven and Mendelssohn, a harbinger of the tone poem. The second type was most
popular from 1790 to 1850, with Cherubini and Beethoven composing their operatic
overtures in strict sonata form. The generally accepted form overwhelmingly
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popularized by Rossini was a variant of this, what Ebenezer Prout called ‘the abridged
non-sonata-allegro’, where the development section was either omitted entirely, or
severely truncated, or replaced by brief sequential passages leading from the dominant
area of the second theme group back to the tonic for the recapitulation, with attention
often focused on building up an exciting crescendo. Later in the 19th century a fifth
type, the table of contents, or potpourri overture, came into fashion, particularly in the
world of light opera, operetta and musicals.
The structure of Auber’s overtures
The generic construction of an Auber overture can be schematized:
A. Introduction (Andante)
1) attention-seizing formula
2) lyrical melody (usually slow)
3) preparations for the allegro
B. Exposition
1) first theme (tonic)
2) transition to dominant
3) second theme (dominant)
4) Transition to the tonic
C. Recapitulation/Sequence
1) first theme (tonic)
2) second theme (tonic)
3) third theme (tonic)
D. Coda (Vivace)
1) crescendo
2) climax
3) stretta (accelerando)
The introduction
All Auber’s overtures begin with introductions. These are often attention-focusing
formulae, like double dotted fortissimo chords (Emma, La Part du Diable), or snaredrum solos (La Fiancée, Fra Diavolo), or crashing diminished seventh chords (La
Maçon, La Muette de Portici). Sometimes there is an arresting allegro (Le Cheval de
bronze, Les Chaperons blancs, Le Domino noir) with purposeful thematic
implications. Sometimes the formula was omitted, and the overtures begin directly
with the slow lyrical melody (La Bergère Châtelaine, Zanetta, Les Diamants de la
couronne). Sometimes the formula is extended into a whole generic/thematic
movement, like the military marches that open La Fiancée and Fra Diavolo.
The truncated sonata form and coda
The transition from the introduction to the allegro is sometimes some rhetorical
chords (Fra Diavolo) and a rhythmic prolepsis of the first theme about to come (Les
Diamants de la couronne).The first theme group (often an orchestral melody not from
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the score) is presented softly, with a crescendo leading into a loud repeat of the first
theme. This is followed by the discernible transition to the second theme in the
dominant. In some of the later overtures Auber changed the key-signature altogether
for this second theme group. This is always soft, gentle, lyrical (like the waltz in La
Sirène), while the third theme-group is usually more animated than the second. At the
conclusion of this group, either a truncated development of theme one, or a brief
passage, even of only a few bars, leads back from the dominant to the original tonic.
Sometimes, as in Fra Diavolo and Jenny Bell, this might be a more extended
sequential passage. The recapitulations are straightforward, and invariably repetitions
of the exposition, but always reinvested in augmented orchestral colour and volume.
The conclusions or codas are often extended enough to qualify as sections in
themselves. Often a crescendo passage builds up to a fortissimo climax, which in turn
often has a further acceleration of tempo in the stretta, propelling the work to its final
crashing chords (a pattern most brilliantly exemplified in Le Cheval de bronze).
Tonality
Many of Auber’s overtures are written in the key of D major, often those with a
military theme (La Fiancée, Fra Diavolo, Le Premier Jour de bonheur), but often
either first or second themes of a military nature are in B-flat (as in Les Diamants de
la couronne). There seems to be no consistent alignment of mood and tonality with
the composer: both the serious overture to La Part du Diable and the brilliant
sparkling comic Le Cheval de bronze are written in E-flat major. The perception held
by contemporary critics that he wrote overwhelmingly in D is not accurate. This key
takes the lead with 10 overtures, but Auber’s choice covered much of the tonal
spectrum:
D major = 10 (La Bergère Châteleine, Leicester, Léocadie, La Fiancée, Fra Diavolo,
Le Dieu et la Bayadère, Gustave III, Lestocq, Jenny Bell, Le Premier Jour de
Bonheur)
E-flat major = 5 (La Neige, Le Cheval de bronze, La Part du Diable, La Sirène, La
Circassienne)
G major = 5 (Le Maçon, La Muette de Portici, Actéon, Le Lac des fées, Rêve
d’amour)
B-flat major = 5 (Le Concert à la cour, Fiorella, Les Chaperons blancs, Zanetta,
Zerline)
A major = 4 (Le Philtre, L’Ambassadrice, Marco Spada, L’Enfant prodigue, La
Fiancée du Roi de Garbe)
F major = 3 (Emma, Le Serment, Haydée)
C major = 3 (Le Timide, Les Diamants de la couronne, La Barcarolle)
E major = 3 (Le Duc d’Olonne, Manon Lescaut, Grande Ouverture)
A-flat major/ F major = 1 (Le Domino noir)
Extreme keys in many flats or sharps are eschewed, with B major a preference for
secondary lyrical expression. Lighter numbers were generally in sharp keys and more
serious and tender pieces in flat keys. After La Part du diable, Auber began to follow
the trend of using extreme sharp and flat keys (B major in Haydée and La
Circassienne), but employed extreme flat keys in his serious works (G-flat major in
La Muette de Portici, D-flat major in Le Lac des fées), in the manner of Meyerbeer
and later Verdi.
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The slow movements
Slow tempi occur chiefly in the introductions to overtures or arias, or in contrasting
sections of brisk ensembles or finales, with nearly 80% of his music moderato or
faster. The metre is very conservative (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 2/2 less frequently), with 3/8
used almost exclusively in slow tempi. He found difficulty in sustaining slow
melodies, with apparent seams at two-bar intervals, slow harmonic rhythm, chords
generally restricted to primary triads, the texture homophonic: the beautiful slow
introductions to some of the overtures (like Lestocq, Haydée and Manon Lescaut)
demonstrate his ability to work within these limits. Even in andantes, harmonic
rhythm is not very active, a factor that intensifies the static effect of his compositions
in slow tempo. Only towards the cadences is there a speeding up of the harmonic
rhythm, providing a charming effect (as in the stretta of the overtures to Fiorella and
L’Ambassadrice). His harmony is almost exclusively diatonic: in stretta, coda and
crescendo patterns tonic and dominant chords are almost exclusively employed, and
he very seldom shifted the tonal centre to degrees of the scale other than the tonic,
mediant, subdominant, dominant or submediant. His allegros are more common and
perhaps more effective than his andantes, even if his successful allegros are
constructed out of short-breathed phrases, repetitious patterns and a variety of texture.
The use of dance rhythms
One of Auber’s most predominant characteristics is his rhythmic dash based on the
universal dance rhythms of the 1830s and 1840s (polka and galop). These
recognizable forms and their infectious melodies, introduced into his overtures and
dance music, made his music ubiquitous in the period 1825-1870. The charm of his
neatly composed and elegant style is captured particularly in the dance rhythms,
which infuse the tuneful numbers with their deft orchestral accompaniments.
The use of themes
In the construction of Auber’s overtures the thematic discourse is often structured
around motifs from the first finale (as in Fra Diavolo, Le Cheval de bronze, Lestocq,
La Part du diable). The first act finales are also of great weight and musical richness
(as in Fra Diavolo, Le Cheval de bronze, Le Domino noir and Les Diamants de la
couronne). Indeed, the first finale, rarely the second, is often the busiest in action and
musical invention. An example of a work where the second finale assumes this great
importance is Marco Spada, which is rich in ensembles.
The orchestra
The legacy of Rossini is also evident in Auber’s orchestra, and through Auber,
became standard in French operatic composition in the nineteenth century. The
instrumentation of Auber’s operas ranges from the chamber accompaniments of Le
Séjour militaire (1813) and Le Testament (1819) to the large orchestra (including
piccolo, full brass, ophicleide, harps and percussion) of his grands opéras. Most of his
opéras-comiques are scored for Rossini’s orchestra: piccolo, woodwinds in pairs, four
horns, two trumpets (replaced around 1830 by cornets à pistons), trombones, timpani,
snare drum, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, harp and strings. The orchestra of the
Opéra-Comique was a good orchestra, but not the best in Paris. There was little
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virtuoso writing for the instrumentalists comparable to that of Berlioz and Meyerbeer.
Wagner, however, thought his handling of the strings in La Muette de Portici fluent
and dramatic in the most original manner. Auber understood the capabilities of the
musicians for whom he wrote, and his orchestration served as a model for that of
Gevaert, Bizet and Massenet.
THE OVERTURES
1. La Bergère Châtelaine (1820) (D major 3/4 - d minor 2/4 - D major))
Auber’s first significant opera, with libretto by Eugène de Planard, is a slight pastoral
tale about a shepherdess, Lucette, who is really a member of a noble family and so
eligible to marry the Count de Monfort who loves her. The overture is one of two by
Auber (the other being Actéon) which does not use thematic material from the opera.
However, in the finest 18th-century buffo tradition of Mozart and Rossini, it sets the
appropriate mood for the opera. Its charming motifs (a tick-tack imitation of a
millwheel), establish a pastoral atmosphere, and excited a lively enthusiasm. It is full
of freshness and lightness, artfully constructed, and sustained by a substantial
orchestration.
2. Emma (1821) (F major 4/4 - alla breve)
Set in Restoration Germany, the opera, again with libretto by Planard, tells the story
of the benevolent actions of Mme Palmer, a wealthy widow, whose generosity enables
Edmon and Emma to marry for love rather than gain. The overture is very attractive,
illustrating some of the many aptly imagined melodies in this score, like Rose’s
Tyrolienne and Emma’s final aria (“Pourquoi cette tristesse que je lis dans tes
yeux?”).
3. Leicester, ou Le Château de Kenilworth (1823) (D major 4/4 - 3/4 - 4/4)
This opera marked a milestone in Auber’s career, being the first of his 38
collaborations with the famous dramatist and librettist, Eugène Scribe (1791-1861).
The story is based on Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel about Queen Elizabeth’s state
visit to Kenilworth. Despite Leicester’s attempts to conceal his marriage from her, the
Queen learns the truth and chooses Raleigh as her favourite instead. The opera reflects
Rossini’s influence in its Italianate idiom. It is dominated by the figure of Queen
Elizabeth, from the postured and somewhat portentous opening of the overture; she is
sketched in strong brushstrokes, as her grand dotted entrance motif suggests.
4. La Neige, ou Le Nouveau Eginard (1823) (E-flat major 3/4)
Set in a German princely court in Swabia during the Restoration, the story tells how
Louise and Linsberg are, through the agency of Baroness de Wedel, eventually able to
marry, despite ambitious plans to hinder their love. The title comes from a scene
where Linsberg is taken secretly across a frozen lake to see Louise. The opera became
very popular, and its concise, elegant, spritely overture captures something
quintessential of Auber’s brilliant rushing style, revealing his own musical voice
growing in imaginative self-confidence. This overture combines the characteristic
élan of pointed march rhythms (so typical of many of the composer’s later works),
and a tender Romantic mood in melody. There were 176 performances by 1841.
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5. Le Concert à la cour, ou La Débutante (1824) (B-flat major 4/4 - 6/8)
The story again uses one of Scribe’s favoured Restoration settings, the small Court in
Germany. Adele, an aspiring singer, is, with the help of her friend Victor, able to rise
above intrigue and secure a post at Court by her brilliant singing at an audition. This
one-act work is the first of several scenarios Scribe provided for Auber about the
vicissitudes of the artistic life. The brilliant principal role was written for AntoinetteEugénie Rigaut (b. 1797) (creator of Anna in Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche, 1825),
whose decisive winning aria, with its characeristic demisemiquaver and
hemidemisemiquaver runs and turns, is presented in the overture. This little opera
proved very popular because of this famous aria, and was performed some 246 times
until 1851.
6. Léocadie (1824) (D major 3/8 - d minor 3/4 - D major - d minor - D major)
Set in Portugal at the end of the 18th century, and based on a story by Cervantes, the
plot concerning a young girl’s betrayal and loss, was considered too serious and
melodramatic for opéra-comique. It was, however, much appreciated for the music,
influenced by Auber’s teacher Cherubini. This is reflected in the overture, with its use
of restrained Iberian colour in the bolero rhythm, its wistful second subject that
captures the personality of the sad heroine, and its binary shift between the tonic
major and minor. The orchestration calls for a harp, an instrument used sparingly by
Auber. It was performed for 8 consecutive years, and had 120 performances. In this
opera, designated an opéra français, Auber recovered a more French manner,
integrating the influence of Rossini into his own more authentic idiom.
7. Le Maçon (1825) (g minor 4/4 - G major 6/8)
This was one Auber’s best works, and his first international success, the first of his
mature opéras-comiques, characterized by an Italianate sparkle but with a uniquely
French grace and lyricism. It is a variant on the rescue opera, set in Paris during the
Restoration, and concerns a mason and a locksmith, abducted from their wedding
celebrations and coerced into helping secretly to imprison a young girl, Irma, in the
Turkish embassy. Instead they facilitate her escape with her lover Léon. The overture
reflects the dark underside of this story, opening with the music of the imprisonment,
an oppressive minor key atmosphere, with startling and unsettling initial diminished
seventh chords, sustained pedal points, and strong chromatic inflexions. This is
contrasted with the light open main subject, a spritely unison duet for flute and
bassoon that celebrates the friendship of Roger and Baptiste. The Mason was created
by the famous tenor Louis-Antoine Eléonore Ponchard (1787-1866) (who also
premiered the role of Georges Brown in La Dame blanche earlier in the year); the
Locksmith by the baritone Vizentini. The opera was given until 1834, and revived
regularly until 1896, attaining 525 performances. In Germany, as Maurer und
Schlosser, it became very popular right up to the 1930s.
8. Le Timide (1826) (C major 3/8 - 6/8)
This was probably the least successful of all Auber’s operas, attaining only 14
performances. The slight one-act scenario presents a Regency plot of
misunderstanding and poorly articulated intention (owing to social shyness or
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timidity). At the end everything is cleared up, with Valmont winning the widowed
Mme d’Hérancy and Saint-Ernest winning Amélie. The musical numbers are scenes
involving dialogue and ensemble work between two or more characters, with a final
chorus. The largest number, a central quintet, is non-dramatic, and occurs at the
beginning of the final scene, rendering the rest anticlimactic. Everything was atypical
of the usual formula of Auber’s successes, from the static conversational orientation
of the drama to the lack of musical variety. As the overture demonstrates (in the only
full score in this collection), the music itself is full of the composer’s usual charm and
imagination.
9. Fiorella (1826) (B-flat major 3/4 - g minor - B-flat major)
The plot, set in Rome in the 18th century, concerns Fiorella, the ward of the Duke of
Farnese, who is loved by the wealthy bon vivant, Albert. Rodolphe, a French agent,
becomes Albert’s friend and is introduced to Fiorella, whom he recognizes as
Camille, his former love in Paris. Eventually Fiorella and Rodolphe pair off while
Albert consoles himself with Bianca the maid. The scenario resembles Donizetti’s La
Favorite, but with a happy ending. The overture, essentially monothematic, is brisk
and vigorous, shaped by a bold Allegro mouvement de valse. This is the principal
melody of the opera, and dominates the later act 1 duet and trio and barcarole, leading
into the act 1 finale. The melody was later prominently used in the ballet Marco
Spada (1857). There were 92 performances between 1826 and 1831, and another 16 in
1848 (118 in all).
10. La Muette de Portici (1828) (g minor 4/4 - B-flat major 6/8 - g minor 4/4 - D
major - g minor - G major)
Auber’s first grand opera, with a text by Scribe and Germaine Delavigne, was
performed at the Paris Opéra on 29 February 1828, with the legendary tenor Adolphe
Nourrit as Masaniello (1802-1839). By 1880 it had been given some 500 times. The
story, based on a historical incident, concerns the Neapolitan fisherman folk hero and
revolutionary Massimo Aniello who led a popular rebellion against Spanish
oppression in 1647. In the opera Masaniello’s sense of injustice is inflamed by the
seduction of his mute sister Fenella by the Spanish viceroy. This opera is regarded as
Auber’s masterpiece. The work rapidly became known all over the world, and
revolutionized established traditions through the novelty of the subject and striking
originality of the music. It helped Rossini in the inspiration of Guillaume Tell, and
was partly responsible for starting the Belgian revolt for independence in July 1830.
The sentiments of the dumb heroine Fenella are wonderfully expressed in the
imaginative orchestral music for her miming (the role was created by the dancer Lise
Noblet). The character has its origins in Sir Walter Scott’s Peveril of the Peak.
Wagner wrote of this opera: “The bold effects of instrumentation, particularly in the
treatment of the strings, the dramatic grouping of the choral masses, which here for
the first time take an important part in the action, are no less original than the
harmonies and happy strokes of characterization” (Erinnerungen an Auber, 1874).
The overture begins stormily with crashing diminished seventh chords, music taken
from the introduction to Masaniello’s recitative and aria at the beginning of act 4,
which is repeated after a quieter interlude. A running triplet passage in the strings
leads into the main theme of the overture, a march-like tune which forms a chorus
“All honour to Masaniello”. After a spirited development, the theme is heard again,
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and a più animato coda brings the overture to a rousing conclusion.
11. La Fiancée (1829) (D major 4/4 - A major - D major)
Only ten months after the great triumph of La Muette de Portici (1828), La Fiancée
appeared; a light work, anchored in the very French traditions of the opéra-comique.
These two neighbouring works, so stylistically divergent, embrace the whole extent of
Auber’s artistic potential. Most of the subject matter was borrowed from Michel
Masson and Raymond Brucker’s Contes de l’atelier, and it is one of Scribe’s most
moving and best handled plots. The setting is Vienna immediately after the
Napoleonic Wars. Fritz, an upholsterer serving in the National Guard, is disappointed
that Henriette, his fiancée, loves the nobleman Frédéric von Lowenstein. She marries
him, while Fritz falls easy prey to the wily couturier, Madame Charlotte. Dotted
rhythmic patterns, characteristic of Auber’s second period, are illustrated in the very
opening of the overture, which is dominated by the military march (as in Fra
Diavolo), appropriate to the era of prolonged warfare and the ethos of the National
Guard recalled in this work. But the overture also captures the mood of the urban
pastoral, so integral to this intrigue of social advancement. This opera both closes the
series in the first style of the composer, and begins the second phase. With Fra
Diavolo, the musical horizon expands. This work was very successful in Paris. It was
performed 93 times in its first year, and 273 times by 1858.
12. Fra Diavolo, ou L’Hôtellerie de Terracina (1830) (D major 2/4 - 6/8 A major - D
major - 12/8)
This opera, Auber’s most famous, was produced at the Opéra-Comique on 28 January
1830, with text by Scribe. The production was in the Salle Ventadour (now a bank)
where the Opéra-Comique had sought refuge, fearing that the old Salle Feydeau might
crumble around it. These difficult circumstances in no way affected the enduring success
of the opera, which was played continually until 1911, totalling 909 performances, and
establishing itself worldwide as Auber’s most loved and enduring opera. It has
remained popular in Germany. Fra Diavolo was a notorious robber-chief who
terrorized the neighbourhood of Terracina in the Compagnia where the action takes
place. This dynamic role was created by tenor Jean-Baptiste-Marie Chollet (17981892). The opera presents a series of memorable characters: Zerline the deft heroine
of humble background, her idealistic and romantic lover the brigadier Lorenzo, the
travelling English aristocrats, Lord Cockburn and Lady Pamela, great comic creations.
The overture begins with the quiet beat of a side drum, and gradually the whole
orchestra joins in, creating the effect of an approaching procession which then passes
on into the distance. A trumpet call initiates a strenuous passage, leading into a sprightly
tune for the woodwind over pizzicato strings, that is followed by a dancelike section for
the whole orchestra. Both these themes come from the act 1 finale where the carabinieri
bring the news that many of Fra Diavolo’s band have been killed in a fight, a success
for the young officer Lorenzo who is now able to marry Zerline, the innkeeper’s
daughter. After another fanfare the themes are repeated and lead into a presto coda.
13. Le Dieu et la Bayadère (1830) (D major 6/8 - 2/4)
Using the outline of Goethe’s ballad “Der Gott und die Bayadere”, Scribe provided
Auber with another scenario for the Paris Opéra. The Oriental theme provided an
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opportunity for exoticism, and saw the composer make a real contribution to
Romantic ballet with another major mimed dancing role for the female protagonist.
The work was kept in the repertory until 1866, with 146 performances. The bayadère
Zoloé has fallen in love with a mysterious stranger who took her part when the senior
judge Olifour tried to force her to become a courtesan. Olifour sets Zoloé’s hut on fire
in a jealous rage. The stranger shows his divine power by extinguishing the fire, and is
translated to heaven with Zoloé. He is revealed as Brahma, the God of Hindustan,
who through Zoloé’s love can return to his kingdom, having until now searched in
vain for a human who could truly love him. The mercurial, elegant overture is very
effective, thematically pertinent, but eschews any sense of drama. The music is taken
from scenes pivotal to the action. The opening Allegro mouvement de marche is taken
from the scene where Zoloé saves her unknown beloved from arrest by Olifour. The
main Allegro section of the overture contrasts two themes: the first is from the scene
where the bayadère Fatmé pleases Brahma with her dancing, and so provokes the
jealousy of Zoloé who then dances herself for the god. This eight-bar theme is
repeated twice before the appearance of a reflective episode, an orchestral melody of
the same bar length, used only in the overture. The second theme cites Brahma’s
words in act 2: “Pour éveillersa jalousie, feignons d’admirer leurs appas”, bringing
love and jealousy to the fore again, and is transposed to the tonic in the recapitulation.
As is the usual case in his overtures, Auber sharpens the drama in the conclusion by
simple, effective harmonic and dynamic means.
14. Le Philtre (1831) (A major 4/4 - 2/4)
Auber’s works influenced and inspired other composers, like Gaetano Donizetti, who
borrowed the subject of Le Philtre for his own L’elisir d’amore, created to Felice
Romani’s adaptation of Scribe’s libretto (1832). Guillaume, a young and
impressionable farmhand, obtains a philtre from a travelling charlatan, Doctor
Fontanarose, which he hopes will enable him to win the love of the beautiful but aloof
lady of the manor Thérèsine, who is courted by the swaggering soldier Sergeant
Jolicoeur. In possession of this liqueur, Guillaume first repels and then delights the
young lady farmer who recognizes her love for him. This was one of Auber’s more
successful works, especially rich in his characteristic grace and in freshness of
melody. The music has distinguishing qualities. The overture focuses on the love
triangle at the centre of the story with themes from the act 1 trio for Thérèsine,
Jolicoeur and Guillaume predominating: Jolicoeur’s strutting military dotted rhythms,
Guillaume’s assertion of his faith in the efficacy of the philtre with its characteristic
leaping fifths, the conclusion of the trio in thirds—a proleptic suggestion of the union
of Thérèsine and Guillaume. The opera remained popular in Paris until 1862, with 243
performances.
15. Le Serment, ou Les Faux Monnayeurs (1832) (F major 6/8 - 4/4 - 6/8 - 2/4)
The plot is set in Toulon in the year 1800, and concerns Captain John, a brigand chief
and counterfeiter, betrothed to Marie, the innkeeper Andiol’s daughter, who later
marries her true love Edmond, a farmer turned soldier. The music is full of ingenious
details and the orchestration is refined. The overture became well-known. It
establishes three distinct thematic worlds. The first is pastoral, in the extended
Andantino introduction, a long lazy barcarolle suggesting the seaport and the lives of
Marie and Andiol. The busy theme of the alla breve Allegro vivace presents the world
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of the counterfeiters, with their work evoked in the unusual effect col legno of the
tapping of the bows on wood (and looks forward to the similar activities of the coiners
in act 1 of Les Diamants de la couronne). The third arena is military. The use of side
and bass drum, brassy fanfares (familiar from Fra Diavolo), and the Allegro
mouvement de Pas redoublé capture the swagger and panache of the patriotic theme
embodied in Edmond’s adventures as a soldier. The work received 100 performances
until 1849.
16. Gustave III, ou Le Bal masque (1833) (D major 4/4 – F major – D major)
Scribe’s libretto for this opéra-historique was later famously adapted by Antonio
Somma for Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (1859). The story, concerning the fated love
of the cultured and reforming King Gustavus III of Sweden for Amélie, wife of his
friend and secretary Ankastroem, gave Auber the opportunity to write one of his most
serious, vivid and original works. Nourrit created the role of Gustavus, and the great
dramatic soprano Marie-Cornélie Falcon (1812-1897) that of Amélie. The king is
assassinated at a masked ball, and as he dies declares Amélie innocent, and forgives
his enemies. The overture at 420 bars is the second longest of Auber’s operas (after
L’Enfant prodigue), and like all his others, makes use of melodies heard later in the
opera. The opening, taken from the beginning of the Act 3 finale (the scene beneath
the gallows), fixes attention firmly on the monarch and his troubled relationship with
Amélie. The ensuing andante is from the king’s soliloquy at the beginning of Act 5,
and concentrates attention precisely on his spiritual dilemma, the situation being made
even clearer by the second subject from Gustave’s duet with Amélie in Act 3—a
soaring lyrical passage (the rapture of love) and an answering phrase, unexpectedly
chromatic (the danger and sorrow attendant on this love). The conclusion is
dominated by a Rossinian crescendo. The whole is otherwise built on a series of
contrasts that are very much Auber’s own: a military flavour in the opening
conspiracy motif, and regular alternation of fervent passages with more lyrical
interludes. The unchanging common time lends the work a stately uniformity, a
slightly monolithic quality. The work was revived until 1859, attaining 169
performances.
17. Lestocq, ou L’Intrigue et l’amour (1834) (d minor alla breve - 4/4 - D major)
Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, is declared incapable of succeeding her
father. She retires to the provinces accompanied by a French doctor named Lestocq, a
former favourite of the Tsar—an able and ambitious man. He organizes a conspiracy
and restores Elizabeth to the throne. The work was not very successful in France (93
performances until 1840), but the overture is particularly beautiful. It unfolds in two
parts, the opening section an extended D-minor oboe solo over plucked strings and
sustained horns and bassoons, full of melancholic reflection, capturing the sad
implications of this Russian story, but always kept in motion, never indulgently
lingering. This will be heard again at the beginning of Act 2. The overture then
suddenly launches into the second faster allegro D-major section, taken from the Act
1 finale—the brisk military galop expressing the carpe diem philosophy of the
soldier’s life (“Il faut s’amuser, rire et boire”), the aspiring lyrical section reflecting
the Empress Elizabeth’s yearning for peace (“Que mes jours sans nuage restent purs et
sereins, que jamais les orages ne trouble mes destins!”), both from the extended act 1
finale.
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18. Le Cheval de Bronze (1835) (E-flat major alla breve - B-flat major 2/4 - E-flat
major alla breve - 6/8)
This work, described as a fairy opera, was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in
March 1835, eventually obtaining 106 performances there, and another 20 at the Paris
Opéra (as an expanded opéra-ballet in 1857). The story concerns a mysterious bronze
horse, standing on a rocky cliff near a Chinese village, that has the magic power of
riding into the air with anyone sitting on it, revealing wonderful sights in other realms.
It transports some of the characters to a strange fairyland on the planet Venus, but
later returns them to earth. The overture divides into two unrelated sections: the
vigorous opening serves as a rondo theme, and is that of the Bronze Horse itself. It
leads into a graceful flute, clarinet and violin melody in B-flat major, the theme of the
enterprising heroine Péki’s aria. After the return of the rondo theme, several smooth
ideas are briefly introduced, before giving way to a long silence. The second section
starts in 6/8 with a jaunty dotted tune in the strings from the act 1 finale when Prince
Yang decides to mount the Horse: it represents its magical power. The theme is
worked up into a big climax with the whole orchestra playing fortissimo in a final
brilliant coda.
19. Actéon (1836) (G major 4/4 - e minor- G major - B-flat major 6/8 - G major 3/4)
Set in Sicily during the 18th century, this one-act work on the theme of jealousy, and
written as a vehicle for the celebrated Laure Cinti-Damoreau (1801-1863), is
dominated by the Sicilienne which was regarded as a masterpiece of grace and charm.
It was revived in 1847 and 1852. The overture, with its perky introduction broken by
slower minor shaded cello and oboe sequences, is dominated by Mediterranean
rhythms: a vigorous bolero encloses a beautiful hushed central movement, a
Sicilienne, which is dreamily passed from horns to clarinets to oboes, perfectly
establishing the idyllic nature and mood of the slight story. There were 92
performances in all.
20. Les Chaperons Blancs (1836) (g minor alla breve - B-flat major 3/4 - E-flat
major - A-flat major alla breve - B-flat major)
One of Auber’s least successful works (a mere 12 performances), the scenario tells
how Marguerite and her guardian, the rich perfumier Vanderblas, save Count Louis of
Brabant from the civic conspiracy of the ‘White Hats’. The introductory trio is
catching in its verve and spirit, one of the most charming pieces that Auber ever wrote
in the comic mode, and later used in the ballet Marco Spada (1857). The overture
highlights the aria which the Prince sings in act 3. Blaze de Bury thought that there
was nothing better in La Muette or in Gustave than this piece: “The phrasing is simple
and touching, the feeling real, and Chollet performed it marvellously.” The phrase
produces a better effect in the overture, where the pathetic and vibrant tone of the
attacking cellos conveys the melody most effectively.
21. L’Ambassadrice (1836) (A major 4/4 - 3/4)
This opera was written at a prolific period of creativity, the same year as Actéon and
Les Chaperons blancs, and was regarded as one of the composer’s finest efforts, with
416 performances by 1873. An added interest was attached to the story when in 1850
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the plot, concerning a singer who retires to marry and later returns to the stage,
seemed to mirror an episode in the life of the soprano Henriette Sontag. She had left
the stage to marry the Comte de Rossi, but later resumed her career. The music has
been described as in turns lively, touching, playful and tender. The concise nervous
skipping overture is particularly lovely, and provides a musical portrait of the elegant
and resourceful heroine: it opens with pathos and reflection, before launching
precipitately, via a breathless crescendo of string sequences, into the incorrigibly
vivacious main theme taken from the big act 2 quintet. The serrez final section
demonstrates how Auber’s middle-period scores use chromatic chords judiciously to
add excitement to an otherwise bland diatonic texture.
22. Le Domino noir (1837) (A-flat major 3/4 - f minor - A-flat major - C - A-flat
major - F major 3/8 - 6/8)
This three-act work produced at the Opéra-Comique on 2 December 1837 proved to
be Auber’s most popular opera in France, with 1209 performances by 1909. On the
first night the star soprano Laure Cinti-Damoreau, a singer much loved by the
composer, was accorded an ovation. Auber had provided her with a part perfectly
suited to her talents. The heroine Angela, a noblewoman, is abbess-elect of a
fashionable convent in Madrid, but still enjoys attending parties masked in a black
domino. The first act takes place at just such a party given by the Queen of Spain
herself. The overture sets the festal mood with a chain of rather formal dance tunes in
waltz-time. A processional ritornello in A-flat major frames three contrasting episodes
in F minor in a small set of theme and variations. The syncopated melody that follows
in C is the principal motif of a duet for Angela and Count Horace, who has fallen in
love with the masked beauty. This leads on to a lively Aragonaise in F that Angela,
disguised as a servant girl, Inesille, sings for the entertainment of a bachelor party in
act 2, which is developed into a lively peroration. In the end Angela is released from
her vows and becomes free to marry Horace, whose love she returns. The unexpected
transformation of expectations is presaged in the overture which finishes not in the
tonic key, but that of the submediant. The shifting interplay of tonal variation (with
relative and tonic minors), and use of the mediant and submediant, as well as the
buoyant character of the themes and lightness of orchestration, make this Auber’s
most subtle and refined overture.
23. Le Lac des fées (1839) (G major 4/4 - C major - g minor - G major - g minor - G
major 2/4)
The subject of this five-act opera is taken from a Romantic German ballad, and
features a poetic student Albert, who becomes involved in the supernatural world of
the Fairy Queen Zéila. The great tenor Gilbert Duprez (1806-1896) created the part of
Albert. The composer handled this legendary and supernatural subject with a certain
poetic grace and dramatic inspiration. The G-major overture captures the essence of
the work. Its incisive opening focuses on Albert and his words to Zéila during the act
3 Fête des rois extolling her beauty above royal pretension (“C’est le sort qui seul to
donne sceptre d’or...par la beauté tu regnerais encor”). It leads into the strutting dotted
rhythms that refer to Albert’s rival for Zéila’s love, Rodolphe, and his search for
power, taken from the act 4 quartet. A transition for solo flute leads into the
undulating and mystical C major music of Zéila’s supernatural nature, smooth and
lyrical as compared with the brusque and jerky human music just heard—the melody
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xxiii
arching over the arpeggios and floating on a pedal point of C for 18 bars. This
becomes a Leitmotif of the Fairies, and recurs whenever the crisis over Zéila’s nature
is in question, especially in act 5. It was not popular in France (only 30
performances), but highly regarded in Germany where it was given as Die Feensee.
24. Zanetta, ou Il ne faut pas jouer avec le feu (1840) (B-flat major 3/4, 2/4)
In this opera, a Sicilian princess loves Rodolphe de Montemar. To baffle Court
suspicion, the latter pretends to court Zanetta, daughter of the palace gardener. As
events take their course, he forgets the Princess, who marries the Emperor. The music
of this pleasant work is notable for the amount of vocal display (again stimulated by
the muse of Mme Damoreau). The overture is very attractive, with its mysterious
opening of descending triplets, and dancing common-time theme punctuated by
overlapping downward spiralling woodwind figures. Auber, like so many nineteenthcentury composers, had a particular love of the waltz, with Zanetta singled out as the
work in which this rhythm predominates. The recurrent use of the waltz rhythm
characterizes the finales of the first and third acts (compare Fiorella and Haydée as
earlier and later works respectively with a similar emphasis; La Sirène, Zerline and
Rêve d’amour also have good examples of choral waltzes). There were only 35
performances.
25. Les Diamants de la couronne (1841) (C major 12/8 - F major 2/4 - B-flat major F major - c minor 4/4 - G major - C major 2/4 - E-flat major 4/4)
Another of Auber’s most popular works, with libretto by Scribe and Henri Vernoy de
Saint-Georges, this opera was produced at the Opéra-Comique on 6 March 1841. It is
set in Lisbon in 1777, and the plot centres around the young Queen of Portugal,
Catharina, who substitutes counterfeit gems for the crown jewels in order to save the
economy. Auber wrote the difficult part of the Queen for the English nightingale
Anna Sophie Thillon (1819-1903), a part commensurate with her skill and talent.
After a serene opening, an aria for the first violins supported by wind chords and
plucked strings, a more rhythmic figure leads into the main subject of the overture.
This is begun quietly in the brass, soon joined by the woodwind, but rather strikingly
without any string support. This theme is from the finale, a chorus in praise of the
young queen. Suddenly the strings enter forte, the music becoming alternately stormy
and delicate, until brass fanfares herald the return of the main theme, now reinforced
by the strings, to bring the overture to rousing conclusion in C. Concert performances
usually end here, but in fact there is a further coda in E-flat characterized by
descending semiquaver figures over sustained chords which (in the manner of
Mozart’s Don Giovanni) allows the overture to end quietly in preparation for the first
scene in act 1, a soliloquy in the mountains. As in Le Domino noir, also featuring a
powerful heroine, this unusual conclusion (in the mediant) is not simply a
dramaturgical expedient: it is also thematic, as if to reflect the Queen’s strongly and
newly established persona at the end of the opera—the same but different. The work
was performed 379 times until 1895.
26. Le Duc d’Olonne (1842) (E major alla breve - C major - E major - B major 6/8 E major 4/4
This is a Spanish imbroglio in which political events serve as pretext for various
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Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
amorous intrigues. The overture shows Auber at his best in its piquant harmony and
rhythm. The E-major overture is brisk and trim, and provides some of the principal
motifs of the opera with flair. These are mainly from the act 2 finale, the beautiful
hushed sequence of parallel thirds and sixths leads into Bianca’s prayer (“Mon Dieu!
toi qui seul peux m’entendre”) over a chain of augmented sixths; and from the opening
of act 3 (No. 10 Cavatine, Scène et Sérénade). The series of upward demisemiquaver
runs from the latter (at Bianca’s words “Mais à la Cour c’est différent”) has become
widely known as part of the final movement in the popular modern pas de deux
arranged by Victor Gsovsky from pieces from Auber’s operas, and known as the
Grand Pas Classique (Paris, 1949). There were only 45 performances.
27. La Part du Diable, ou Carlo Broschi (1843) (E-flat major 4/4 - c minor 3/8 - Bflat major 4/4 - E-flat major 2/4)
This three-act work, first produced on 16 January 1843, was only a moderate success
compared with Auber’s most popular works: 263 performances by 1881. It marks the
beginning of Auber’s third creative period, characterized by a more lyrical manner,
and moreover, is one of Auber’s best works, evincing a variety of effects, rhythmic
combinations, finesse of orchestral detail, piquant and original harmony, verve and
brio. The story, set around Madrid and Aranjuez, concerns the celebrated 18th-century
castrato singer Farinelli (a travesti part played in the premiere by Juana Rossi-Caccia,
1805-1892), who was employed to sing in order to soothe King Ferdinand VI of Spain
in his melancholia. Farinelli’s sister Casilda was created by Anna Thillon, her admirer
the tenor Rafaël d’Estuniga by Gustave Roger. The opera was long performed in
Germany under the twin titles of Carlo Broschi and Des Teufels Anteil. The music of
La Part du Diable is not consistently inspired, but very effective in the lyrical
moments, with most unusually differentiated movements in the ensembles. The
overture is very attractive, especially the opening where one notes a mysterious effect
of the violins con sordine, and then a splendidly handled fanfare de chasse, both
drawn from the act 1 finale of the opera.
28. La Sirène (1844) (E-flat major 2/4 - 3/4 - B-flat major - E-flat major - 6/8)
A bandit, Marco Tempesta, who is disguised as the innkeeper Scopetto, has a sister
named Zerlina who plays the role of a siren to lure victims into her brother’s clutches.
But the robber has a generous soul: he pardons his enemies, marries his sister to a
young naval officer who has captured the bandits’ loot, and after having made them
happy, escapes by an opportune evasion, which leads amusingly to the revelation of
his identity. The overture is very arresting, made up as it is of a beautiful song for the
violoncellos and an elegant series of waltzes. This adagio introduction evokes the
character of the mysterious siren, and is taken from the quartet in the act 1 finale
where the four male protagonists voice their hopes and expectations, all associated
with the temptress who is heard in the mountains, but remains invisible. The Allegro
non troppo waltz sequence is made up of two different sets, each in several sections.
The first set (in E-flat), with its perky melody for unison clarinets and piccolos,
establishes the mood; the second is taken from the duet for Zerlina and Scopetto in act
2 where Scopetto must guess who her lover is. A transition leads back into the second
waltz sequence (in B-flat), the dominant (the tonic form is reserved for the
recapitulation). A triplet figure connects this waltz to the Tyrolienne—a motif relating
to Zerlina’s identity as the siren of the mountains. The overture is brought to a climax
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in Allegro assai (6/8) by another whirling waltz. In all Auber’s waltzes, a square-cut
3/4 metre is present, but without the rhythmic elaborations, like hemiolas, found in
Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. The opera was successful in Paris, with
revivals in 1855, 1861, 1887 (164 performances in all).
29. La Barcarole, ou L’Amour et la Musique (1845) (C major 4/4 - F major - G
major - C major)
Scribe’s libretto is another variation on the theme of the artist’s life .The setting is
Parma in the eighteenth-century/time of the Restoration. The Count de Fiesque tries to
help his half-brother, the composer Fabio, by giving him the poem to a barcarolle
which he is to set to music, and thus bring his work to the attention of the Grand
Duke. They inadvertently become involved in an intrigue for preferment by the
Marquis de Felino and the Kapellmeister Cafarini, but in the end all is resolved. The
theme of the barcarolle itself is the principal theme of the opera, and is used, reused
and repeated often. The Barcarolle itself serves as a Leitmotif, presented
imaginatively in various forms throughout the work—solo, duet, quintet, sextet, and
finally quartet at the end of the opera. Of the sixteen numbers in the score, eight are
duets, six of them for male voices, and two for the two basses, a situation underlining
the conversational style of the work. The score also tunes into a tradition of satire—
both of musicians and artists, and of musical styles. The most famous French example
was the enduringly popular Le Maître de chapelle (1821) by Ferdinando Paër. The
first movement of the overture is distinguished by mysterious effects con sordine, and
sounds rather like a Haydn string quartet, appropriate to the conversational tone. It
also features music from the act 2 finale, from the act 3 chorus in praise of Cafarini,
and from two of the duets: those in act 3 between Cafarini and the Marquis, and in act
1 between Cafarini and Fabio—whose lyrical central section provides the dominant
melody. The opera enjoyed more popularity in Germany than in France where there
were only 27 performances.
30. Haydée, ou Le Secret (1847) (F major 4/4 - d minor 9/8 - A-flat major 3/4 - C
major - D-flat major - F major)
This is one of Auber’s most significant and serious scores. The subject was taken
from a Russian novel translated by Prosper Merimée, and is set in Dalmatia, at sea,
and in Venice, in 1500. The opera belongs to the genre of the serious opéra-comique.
The chief themes are the Venetian General Lorédan’s pangs of conscience over
cheating at dice in his youth, his rival Malipieri’s villainy, and the growing love
between Lorédan and his Cypriot slave Haydée. Both text and music derive their
strongest effect from the continual contrast between external action (nautical life,
songs and Venetian pomp) and the convolutions of inner drama. The role of Lorédan
was created by the celebrated tenor Gustave Roger (1815-1879). The overture opens
with a beautiful oboe solo, nuanced with haunting flute harmonies, taken from the act
2 aria for Lorédan’s ward, Rafaëla, and capturing something of the female mystique in
the story. An abrupt and surprisingly harsh sequence leads into a relentless, giddy and
slightly ponderous waltz rhythm, that comes from the act 2 finale, and represents
Lorédan’s enterprising character embodied in his great naval victory. It is transferred
to the theme of the glory of Venice, and becomes a paean of praise (“Venise, ô
bonheur, salut cité chérie, ô Venise notre patrie”). The work was frequently revived
until 1894, attaining some 498 performances, making it Auber’s fifth most popular
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work in Paris (after Le Domino noir, Fra Diavolo, Le Maçon and La Muette de
Portici).
31. L’Enfant Prodigue (1850) (A major 4/4 - a minor - C major - C major 3/8 - A
major - a minor - A major)
This was Scribe’s imaginative use of the Biblical parable (Cf the Gospel of Luke,
chapter 15). The prodigal Azaël leaves his father Reuben in the fields of Juda to seek
out the Egyptian fleshpots of Memphis, but eventually, in disillusionment, returns
home where his forgiving father awaits him. The opera had only 44 performances in
Paris, but the ballet music and the inspired theme that ends the overture have kept it
alive, being included by Constant Lambert in his ballet Les Rendezvous (London, 5
December 1933). The overture is the longest Auber wrote (466 bars). It is divided into
three main sections. The first part focuses attention on the tragic aspects of the story.
The opening Allegro maestoso divides into three: the A-major first section fixes
attention, but the C-major middle section takes one to the heart of the story. The
departure of the prodigal Azaël from his father Reuben and beloved Jephtèle is cited
(on the sweet, slightly reedy nature of the flute in its lower register), as is the
prophecy of divine wrath towards an ungrateful son from the act 1 finale. This
movement moreover introduces the Neapolitan chord with its flattened root third and
melancholy languishing flavour, which serves as a motif throughout the opera The
use of the Plagal mode in the conclusion of this first section conjures up a sense of
antiquity and sustains the mood of high seriousness. The second section in C major,
the Allegro non troppo, begins with the Marche de la caravane, and is followed by
allusion to Nemrod’s account of Azaël’s rescue and enslavement. The music
continues the programme of the action, quoting from Azaël’s dream vision with his
subsequent agonies of conscience and decision to return to his father, a beautiful
clarinet solo. The transition to the other world and the transformation of heart are
depicted. The third climactic part of the overture rehearses the preceding scenario in
symbolic transmutation and thematic shift of paradigm. The dangerous glamour of
Egypt is conjured up in the impetuous sweep and timpani of the A-minor bacchanal
that accompanies the Festival of Apis at Memphis in Act 3.
32. Zerline, ou La Corbeille d’oranges (1851) (B-flat major 6/8 - D major - B-flat
major)
The action is better suited to a vaudeville than an opera, and the scenario, about a
long-lost mother watching beneficently over her daughter’s prospects, has little innate
dramatic interest. It was performed only 14 times. The role of Zerline was devised
especially for the celebrated contralto Marietta Alboni (1823-1894), the first role she
premiered. The B-flat major overture immediately establishes the family nature of the
drama, with its parable of past sins, social disparity and all-conquering maternal love.
It opens with the displaced love duet for Zerline and her Roccanegra, her child’s
natural father, and the memory of their love in the past. It moves through the fussy
pointed demisemiquaver figures associated with Zerline, before reaching the central
mystery of Zerline’s anonymity in the melody of the beloved child, Gemma (“Toi,
dont je n’ose dire, hélas, le nom”), from her act 2 aria.
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33. Marco Spada (1852) (a minor 4/4 - C major - A major)
This three-act work, written by Scribe and Germain Delavigne, was premiered on 21
December 1852. The eternal brigand re-appears, but with less success than in Fra
Diavolo. It was performed 78 times in all, until 1854. The story set near Rome in the
late 18th century features bandits, soldiers, nobility, much disguise, and love triumphant
just when all seemed lost. The overture is one of Auber’s most accomplished, and
survived for a long time in concert performance. The hushed opening, the gently
melancholic and beautiful introductory theme, uses the music from the very moving
death scene at the end of the opera, the sombre mood achieved by the particular effect
of the combination of the upper register of the cellos with the lower register of the
first violins. The gentle melancholy and beauty of this introductory theme is
particularly affecting. It then moves via descending semiquaver figures on the strings
into themes from the extended opening scene of act 3, so focusing on the life of
banditry and romance, as well as the character of the heroine, Angela. The dominating
A-major subject of the overture—lyrical and soaring, fervent but serene—over a
pulsing bass, is from the concerted finale of act 2: Angela’s sorrowful outcry at her
beloved Federici’s expedient engagement (“Moi perfide, moi volage”).
34. Jenny Bell (1855) (D major 4/4 - F major 3/4 - E major 2/4 - B-flat major - D
major)
This is another of Scribe’s scenarios of the artistic life, depicting the struggle of the
English singer Jenny Bell to make a name for herself through her art rather than
through social preferment and a wealthy marriage to the man she does, however, love.
The opposition of circumstances is mirrored in the overture by the contrasting use of
D major and F major (in the last finale Jenny’s solo passage is in B-flat major, the key
associated with her). The opening galop is repeated in F major. A new galop theme in
D major then leads into the reprise of “Chanter, ô terreurs”, now in B-flat, followed
by the first galop in the same key. The second galop, now in D major, sharpens the
tone of the final section before the short presto-stretta where a serious note is struck
by a descending series of seven diminished seventh chords, aiming to return to B-flat
but not actually doing so. The very original work did not capture the public
imagination, and received only 36 performances.
35. Manon Lescaut (1856) (E major 9/8 - e minor 6/8 - E major 2/4 - B major - E
major)
The famous novella Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731),
the seventh volume of the extended novel Memoirs of a Man of Quality by Abbé
Antoine-François Prévost d’Exiles, provided the principal episodes of the scenario.
Scribe used his great skill to disguise the searing and disturbing passion of this story
of an idealistic young man’s obsession with a self-centred and pleasure-loving young
woman, adapting the novel, set in the early 18th-century, more freely than would the
later librettists Henri Meilhac and Philippe-Émile-François Gille (for Jules Massenet’s
Manon, 1884) and Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica (for Giacomo Puccini’s Manon
Lescaut, 1893). The cast was excellent, with the brilliant soprano Marie Cabel (18271885) creating Manon and the great baritone Jean-Baptist Faure (1830-1914) the
Marquis d’Hérigny, but despite a positive reaction to the premiere, the work did not
maintain itself for long in the Parisian repertoire, and was removed after 63
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performances. The overture is ravishing: a beautiful melancholic introduction—an e
minor oboe solo—immediately captures the pathos of Manon and her story: it is
prominent in the act 2 finale, and is linked to Manon’s fateful relationship with the
Marquis. After a perky figure of attention, the main section is precipitately launched:
a breathless galop, that epitomizes the giddy verve and gaiety of Manon’s world of
opportunism and pleasure. This is succeeded by a more reflective second subject in B
major taken from the sad quarter in the last act (“Du courage! Dieu nous regarde”),
suggesting the dark side of the story, where friendship and devotion remain the only
enduring values. In style and thematic coordination the overture resembles the type
embodied perfectly in Lestocq. There were some 65 performances, with a revival in
1882.
36. La Circassienne (1861) (E-flat major 4/4 - B-flat major - E-flat major 3/4 - 4/4)
The plot is set in the Caucasus and Moscow. The subject concerns a young officer,
Alexis, and his adventures while dressed as woman, and was later directly adapted by
Suppé. There were 49 performances altogether. The overture captures something of
the pert and satirical aspects of the potentially louche plot, reflecting an appropriate
tone for the subtle inversions of expectations and values endemic to this storyline. It
unfolds the central themes of the opera, nearly all of them taken from the extended act
2 finale—the Harem Scene, where Alexis and the young heroine Olga have been
confined. It opens with the beautiful andante that is later revealed as the odaliques’
invitation to voluptuousness (“Doux avenir, Joie et plaisir”), but is dominated by the
redowa—a teasing, even saucy motif (“Ah! à nous les délices de cieux”) also devoted
to sensual pleasure. Reference to the love duet for Olga and Alexis in act 3 (“Mon
coeur revait toujours à vous”) forms a lyrical interlude, and the final mouvement de
marche, returning to the act 2 finale (“Mais je serais vangé”), reinforces the military
theme that is the other thematic pole of the opera.
37. La Fiancée du Roi de Garbe (1864) (a minor 3/4 - A major 6/8 - c minor - C
major - C major alla breve - A major - C major alla breve - a minor 2/4 - A major alla breve)
This is one of Auber’s least known scores, and there were only 38 performances.
Scribe died during the work on this opera, and the libretto was completed by Henri
Vernoy de Saint-Georges, the literary collaborator. The subject is borrowed from a
quest story by Boccaccio, as turned into poetry by La Fontaine, one of his short erotic
tales in verse. It has an oriental setting. ‘Garbe’ is an Arabic word for the West, or the
‘Occident’, and it is thought this may originally have been an Arab tale (before being
taken up by Boccaccio) and that the term ‘King of the West’ could mean the King of
Moorish Spain, or the Portuguese Algarve, or possibly even Morocco as the
westernmost Arab possession in North Africa. In the libretto it has an unidentified
Iberian character. The famous character tenor of the Opéra-Comique Sainte-Foy
(Charles-Louis Pubereaux, 1817-1877) created the role of Truxillo, the cupbearer. The
overture reflects the kaleidoscopic nature of the depicted adventures in its constant
and dramatic changes of key and metre. At the centre is the hushed 6/8 variant on the
romance “Dans les cieux l’hirondelle vole” from the act 2 finale. The peroration is
characterized by a spicy descending sequence of augmented dotted octave chords (the
major seventh being the sharpest dissonance the composer employed). As with all
fairy tales, the end is in the beginning: the overture opens and closes with the theme of
Overtures
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the finale (“Voici l’heure du marriage”), but with the sense of a transforming adventure
realized (through altered key and metre—a minor 3/4 into A major alla breve). This
theme in its disparate forms also serves to link the various episodes of the overture
into a coherent whole, like an overall purpose governing the story.
38. Le Premier Jour de bonheur (1868) (D major 3/4 - B-flat major - D major 2/4)
For his last two operas Auber turned to the collaborative partnership of AdolphePhilippe Dennery and Eugène Cormon. The action takes place in India during the
Siege of Pondicherry in 1746. Gaston de Mailleprés, an officer serving in the French
army during the Anglo-French war, has to date encountered only misfortune, but after
many complications, he can eventually experience his first day of happiness in loving
union with Hélène, the cousin of the foolish Sir John Littlepool. The work evinced no
diminution in the powers of the 87-year-old composer, who witnessed a last great
success (175 performances until 1873). Three remarkable male singers starred in the
opera: the tenor Joseph-Amédée-Victor Capoul (1839-1924) as Gaston, Sainte-Foy as
Sir John Littlepool, and the baritone Léon Melchissédec (1843-1925) as the French
officer De Mailly. The overture presents an overall contrast between the Indian
elements of the story (the graceful Ballad of the Djinns) and the French colonial ones
(a bellicose march, full of military swagger, and dance themes from the act 2 ball).
Within this there is a secondary juxtaposing of the Indian and European heroines,
Djelma and Hélène (who were created by the sopranos Marie Roze [1846-1926] and
Marie Cabel respectively). It opens with the soldiers’ chorus of greeting to their
commander from the beginning of the act 1 finale (basically a waltz in D major), and
after a short cello introduction, moves into the opposing Andante con moto (another
waltz, this time in B-flat major)—the mélodie for Djelma in act 2 “Ah! voici la nuit
sous l’ombre des bois”, in praise of the mild Indian summer night. The following
Allegro in 2/4 presents the extrovert dance refrain “Ecoutez ce joyeux refrain” from
Hélène’s chanson (also in D major) in act 2. This moves into the conclusion of the
overture, based on the chorus “Dans les fêtes et le bruit, jeunes têtes le temps fuit”
from the same ball scene. The two opposing waltz themes with tempo and key
changes dominate the first part of the overture, while the second part is shaped by the
galop-like motifs in the main key. This thematic opposition deviates from the plan
followed in most of Auber’s other overtures in that there are no transposed repetitions
of formal sections, and the keys of the quoted themes are retained throughout.
39. Rêve d’Amour (1869) (G major alla breve - C major 6/8 - 4/4 - 6/8 - G major)
This was “the last dream of glory of the most amiable French composer of our
century”. Auber was only a few weeks short of his 88th birthday when the opera was
produced on 20 December 1869. The story recreates 18th-century French society, and
is idyllic and Watteauesque. It follows the fortunes and vicissitudes of love in the life
of Marcel, a young peasant farmer who becomes a successful soldier (created by
Capoul). Marcel’s friendly rival is the Chevalier de Bois-Joli (created by the famous
baritone Pierre Gailhard, 1848-1918). Harmonic and instrumental experiment attest
that the composer was keeping abreast of musical trends whilst remaining true to his
own style. There were only 27 performances, with 1870 marking the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War. The short binary overture is charming, full of fresh ideas. The
extended introduction has motifs from the act 2 duet for Henriette and Marcel framing
the andante melody (for strings and clarinet) of Denise’s act 3 romance (“Je l’aimais
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tant”). The main Allegro presents ideas from the act 2 finale, the galloping music of
Marcel’s departure for a military career encapsulating the theme of the villanelle sung
by the Chevalier (J’ai perdu ma tourterelle”)—so neatly juxtaposing the two male
protagonists, and the overall thematic pull between the dream of love and the glory of
soldierly prowess. It is a lovely pastorale that reaches its climax in a mood of great
playfulness.
40. Grande Ouverture composée pour l’auguration de l’Exposition de Londres
(1862) (E major 4/4 - C major 6/8 - e minor - E major - B major - E major)
This is one of two concert overtures by Auber, written for the grand exhibition of
1862, for which Verdi also wrote his Hymn to the Nations, and Meyerbeer his
Overture in March Style. As an interesting souvenir of the occasion, Auber’s sculpted
figure is to be found on the south-west corner of the plinth of the Albert Memorial,
along with other composers and authors. After a serene but solemn introduction for
the horns in common time (as used in the Grand Pas Classique), the mood changes in
tone and metre through a restless transition (in a busy 6/8) before juxtaposing a sharp,
angular and somewhat chromatic theme (in E major) with a lyrical and freely flowing
secondary idea (cantabile sostnuto in B major). The development contains some
rather startling dissonances and the return of the cantabile melody in the tonic. The
chromatic elements and synchopations add a certain grainy texture to Auber’s usually
fairly unadventurous harmony.