Persée
Tragédie lyrique by François-André Danican Philidor
Portrait of Philidor, London, 1777
LibrettistJean-François Marmontel
LanguageFrench
Based onPhilippe Quinault's libretto for Persée
Premiere
4 October 1780 (1780-10-04)
Académie Royale de Musique, Paris

Persée (Perseus) is an opera by the French composer François-André Danican Philidor first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris (the Paris Opera) on 24 October 1780. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The text is a reworking, by Jean-François Marmontel, of a libretto by Philippe Quinault, originally set by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1682. Philidor's version was not a success.

Roles

Role Voice type Premiere cast
Céphée (Cepheus), King of Ethiopia basse-taille (bass-baritone) Moreau
Cassiope (Cassiopeia), wife of Céphée soprano Françoise-Claude-Marie-Rosalie Campagne (called Mlle Duplant)
Andromède (Andromeda), daughter of Céphée and Cassiope soprano Rosalie Levasseur
Persée (Perseus), son of Jupiter haute-contre Joseph Legros
Phinée, prince of Ethiopia bass-baritone Henri Larrivée
Mercure (the god Mercury) tenor Étienne Lainez
Méduse Medusa, a Gorgon soprano Mlle Duranci (also spelled Durancy)[1]
Euryale, a Gorgon (travesti) haute-contre Jean-Joseph Rousseau[2]
Stenone, a Gorgon (travesti) ? Perré
Orcas, an Ethiopian bass-baritone Auguste-Athanase (Augustin) Chéron
Proténor, an Ethiopian taille (bari-tenor) François Laïs (or Lays)
Un cyclope (a cyclops) bass-baritone Durand
A Triton ? Perré
Vénus (the goddess Venus) soprano Châteauvieux
Une nymphe guerrière (a warrior nymph) soprano Suzanne Joinville

Notes

  1. ↑ Stage name of Madeleine-Céleste Fieuzal (or Fieusacq) de Frossac
  2. ↑ Sources traditionally report only the initial letter (J.) of this singer's name; full details, however, can be found in "Organico dei fratelli a talento della Loggia parigina di Saint-Jean d'Écosse du Contrat Social (1773-89)" (list of the members of this Masonic lodge), reported as an Appendix in Zeffiro Ciuffoletti and Sergio Moravia (eds), La Massoneria. La storia, gli uomini, le idee, Milan, Mondadori, 2004, ISBN 978-8804536468 (in Italian).

Sources

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