Gossec, also important as symphonist and composer of serious operas (Philemon et Baucis, etc.), entered the comic opera field in 1761, the year in which the Opéra Comique, known as the Salle Favart, was opened, though his real success did not come till 1766, with Les Pêcheurs. Carried away by revolutionary fervor, he took up the composition of patriotic hymns, became officially connected with the worship of Reason, and eventually left the comic opera field to Cherubini and Méhul. Both arrived in Paris in 1778, which marks the second period of opéra comique.
The peaceful artistic rivalry and development of this period stand in peculiar contrast to the great political holocaust which coincides with it—the French Revolution. That upheaval was accompanied by an almost frantic search for pleasure on the part of the public, and an astounding increase in the number of theatres (seventeen were opened in 1791, the year of Louis XVI’s flight, and eighteen more up to 1800). Cherubini’s wife herself relates how the theatres were crowded at night after the guillotine had done its bloody work by day. Music flourished as never before and especially French music, for the storm of patriotism which swept the country made for the patronage of things French. In the very year of Robespierre’s execution (1794) the Conservatoire de Musique was projected, an institution which has ever since remained the bulwark of French musical culture.[20]
In 1789 a certain Léonard, friseur to Marie Antoinette, was given leave to collect a company for the performance of Italian opera, and opened his theatre in a hall of the Tuileries palace with his countryman Cherubini as his musical director. The fall of the Bastille in 1794 drove them from the royal residence to a mere booth in the Foire St. Germain, where in 1792 they created the famous Théâtre Feydeau, and delighted Revolutionary audiences with Cherubini versions of Cimarosa and Paesiello operas. Here, too, Lodoïska, one of Cherubini’s most brilliant works, was enthusiastically applauded. Meantime Étienne Méhul (b. Givet, Ardennes, 1763; d. Paris, 1817), the modest, retiring artist, who had been patiently awaiting the recognition of the Académie (his Alonzo et Cora was not produced till 1791) had become the hero of the older enterprise at the Salle Favart,[21] and there produced his Euphrosine et Corradin in 1790, followed by a series of works of which the last, Le jeune Henri (1797), was hissed off the stage because, in the fifth year of the revolution, it introduced a king as character—the once adored Henry IV! This was followed by a more successful series, ‘whose musical force and the enchanting melodies with which they are begemmed have kept them alive.’ His more serious works, notably Stratonice, Athol, and especially Joseph, a biblical opera, are highly esteemed. M. Tiersot considers the last-named work superior to that by Handel of the same name. Méhul was Gluck’s greatest disciple—he was directly encouraged and aided by Gluck—and even surpassed his master in musical science.
Cherubini’s Médé and Les deux journées were produced in 1797 and 1800, respectively. The latter ‘shows a conciseness of expression and a warmth of feeling unusual to Cherubini,’ says Mr. Hadow; at any rate it is better known to-day than any of the other works, and not infrequently produced both in France and Germany. It is opéra comique only in form, for it mixes spoken dialogue with music—its plot is serious. In this respect it furnishes a precedent for many other so-called opéras comiques. Cherubini’s musical resources were almost unlimited, wealth of ideas is even a fault with him, having the effect of tiring the listener, but his overtures are truly classic, his themes refined, and his orchestration faultless. In Les deux journées he abandoned the Italian traditions and confined himself practically to ensembles and choruses. He must, whatever his intrinsic value, be reckoned among the most important factors in the reformation of the opera in the direction of music drama.
Cherubini was not so fortunate as to win the favor of Napoleon, as did his colleagues, Gossec and Grétry and Méhul, all of whom received the cross of the Legion of Honor. He returned to Vienna in 1805 and there produced Faniska, the last and greatest of his operas, but his prospects were spoiled by the capture of Vienna and the entry of Napoleon, his enemy, at the head of the French army. He returned to France disappointed but still active, wrote church music, taught composition at the conservatory and was its director from 1821 till his death in 1842. The opéra comique continued meantime under the direction of Paesiello and from 1803 under Jean François Lesueur (1760-1837) ‘the only other serious composer who deserves to be mentioned by the side of Méhul and Cherubini.’ Lesueur’s innovating ideas aroused much opposition, but he had a distinguished following. Among his pupils was Hector Berlioz.
F. H. M.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Collegium musicum No. 29.
[2] Riemann: Handbuch, II³, p. 121.
[3] Usually Nicolo Logroscino is named as having gone before him, but, as that composer is in evidence only from 1738 (two years after Pergolesi’s death), the date of his birth usually accepted (1700) seems doubtful (cf. Kretzschmar in Peters-Jahrbuch, 1908).—Riemann: Ibid.