Les diamants de la couronne

Les diamants de la couronne (The Crown Diamonds) is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed by the Opéra-Comique at the second Salle Favart in Paris on 6 March 1841. The libretto (in three acts) is by Auber's regular collaborator, Eugène Scribe with the help of Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

Drawing of stage scene with woman in queenly medieval costume, a man kneeling to her and a man on horseback behind them
First production of Les Diamants de la couronne, 1841

Performance history

The opera was performed at the Opéra-Comique 379 times up to 1889,[1] under the title Les diamants de la reine,[2] and was revived in Marseilles on 20 March 1896.[1]

Outside France it was first performed in Brussels on 25 November 1841, New Orleans on 31 March 1842, Munich on 15 July 1842 (in a German translation by V. A. Swoboda), Prague on 13 August 1842 (in German), Hamburg on 29 October 1842 (in German), Riga in 1843 (in German), Amsterdam in 1843 (in French), Berlin at the Hofoper on 11 February 1843 (in German), Copenhagen on 17 February 1843 (in a Danish translation by T. H. Reynoldson), New York City on 14 July 1843 (in French at Niblo's Opéra français with Julie Calvé[3]), London at Princess's Theatre on 2 May 1844 (in an English translation by T. H. Reynoldson) and later at Covent Garden on 11 June 1845 (in French) and Drury Lane on 16 April 1846 (in a new English translation by E. Fitzball, with additional music by H. B. Richards and J. H. Tully).[1]

It was first performed in Stockholm on 17 September 1845 (in a Swedish translation by N. E. W. af Wetterstedt), Rio de Janeiro in September 1846 (in French), Lemberg in 1848 (in German), Vienna on 25 January 1849 (in German), Buenos Aires on 11 April 1852 (in French), Boston in 1854 (in the English version by Fitzball), San Francisco in 1854 (in the English version by Fitzball), Turin on 3 April 1858 (in French), Sydney in August 1863 (in the English version from the Drury Lane Theatre), Barcelona on 20 October 1866 (in French), Saint Petersburg on 15 January 1876 (in Italian), Lisbon on 26 April 1878 (in French), at the Teatro Bellini, Naples, on 30 April 1879 (in an Italian translation by M. M. Marcello, with recitatives by E. Gelli), in Mexico on 8 May 1879 (in French), Budapest in 1880 (in a Hungarian translation by K. Abrányi), and Malta in 1890 (in Italian).[1]

A version of the same story was composed as a zarzuela in three acts by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri with its libretto by Francisco Camprodón taken from the original by Scribe and Saint-Georges, and first performed in 1854.[4]

Roles
Paula Lizell as Catarina at the Kungliga Operan in 1905
Roles, voice types, premiere cast
Role[5] Voice type Premiere cast, 6 March 1841[6]
Catarina soprano Anna Thillon
Diana soprano Celestine Darcier
Don Henrique de Sandoval tenor Joseph-Antoine-Charles Couderc
Rebolledo baritone François-Louis-Ferdinand Henry
Don Sébastien d'Aveyro tenor Toussaint-Eugène-Ernest Mocker
Comte de Campo Mayor tenor Achille Ricquier
Mugnoz tenor Charles-Louis Sainte-Foy
Barbarigo bass-baritone Louis Palianti

Synopsis

The plot concerns a Portuguese princess, Catarina, who intrigues with bandits after she is forced to sell the crown diamonds of the title.

Recordings
  • Les diamants de la couronne Ghyslaine Raphanel, Mylène Mornet, Christophe Einhorn, Orchestre de Picardie; Cori Spezzati, conducted by Edmon Colomer (Mandala, 2001)

References

Notes

  1. Loewenberg 1978, columns 814–815
  2. Wild & Charlton 2005, p. 222.
  3. Brodsky Lawrence 1988, p. 214.
  4. Salter, Lionel. Barbieri, Francisco Asenjo. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997.
  5. Role names are listed in the catalog entry for the 1841 libretto at WorldCat (OCLC 81981919). The order of the roles and voice types are from the booklet accompanying the Mandala recording.
  6. The cast surnames are listed in the catalog entry for the 1841 libretto at WorldCat (OCLC 81981919). The full names for the singers are taken from their entries in Kutsch & Riemens 2003: Sophie Anne Thillon (p. 4696; includes role); Celestine Darcier (p. 1013; includes role); Joseph-Antoine-Charles Couderc (p. 929; includes role); François-Louis-Ferdinand Henry (pp. 2038–2039; includes role); Toussaint-Eugène-Ernest Mocker (p. 3165; includes performance, role not specified); Charles-Louis Sainte-Foy (pp. 4096–4097; includes performance, role not specified); and Louis Palianti (p. 3506; performance not mentioned, but he was a bass and sang minor roles at the Opéra-Comique from 1835 to at least 1872; no other singer with the surname Palianti is listed). The full name (and role) for Achille Ricquier is listed in the catalog entry of a notice documentaire at the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Casaglia 2005 lists Edmond-Jules Delaunay-Ricquier for the role of Don Sébastien. Apart from assigning a different role to the singer named Ricquier from that given in the library catalog listings cited above, Casaglia is not in agreement with Kutsch & Riemens 2003, pp. 1066–1067, who state that Delaunay-Ricquier did not join the Opéra-Comique until 1850 and do not refer to this premier in connection with this singer. Kutsch and Riemens also mention that several other singers around that time were also named Ricquier, and due to the absence of forenames in the historical documents it is difficult to determine who is meant in particular cases. Casaglia also differs from the library catalog listing(s) by assigning Toussaint-Eugène-Ernest Mocker to the role of Rebolledo; François-Louis Henri to the role of comte de Campo Mayor; Georges-Marie-Vincent Palianti to the role of Barbarigo; and Louis Palianti to the role of "majordome". The last role is not included in the WorldCat catalog listing or in the booklet accompanying the Mandala recording. It is possible that the libretto was printed in error, or that the information at WorldCat was entered incorrectly or is incomplete.

Sources

  • Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."Les diamants de la couronne, 6 March 1841". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  • Kutsch, K. J.; Riemens, Leo (2003). Großes Sängerlexikon (in German) (fourth ed.). Munich: K. G. Saur. ISBN 978-3-598-11598-1.
  • Brodsky Lawrence, Vera (1988). Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Volume I: Resonances 1836–1850. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504199-6.
  • Loewenberg, Alfred (1978). Annals of Opera 1597–1940 (3rd, revised ed.). Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-87471-851-5.
  • Wild, Nicole; Charlton, David (2005). Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique Paris: répertoire 1762–1972. Sprimont, Belgium: Éditions Mardaga. ISBN 978-2-87009-898-1.

Further reading
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