462:
the secret. The statesmen, heads of the army and soldiers march in. Pharès tells them that the peoples of Asia are in revolt against Egypt after Séthos' death; it is vital that Egypt has a commander for its army. The soldiers acclaim Pharès as their new general. Their shouts of congratulation are interrupted by the arrival of Nephté. Nephté is outraged at Pharès' behaviour but says that Amédès will soon reveal the killer's name. The soldiers, who have not heard this conversation, urge Pharès and Nephté to marry. Pharès asks where Nephté's son is; he should be brought up in the palace in the view of his people. He sends soldiers to search for the boy. He leaves with the soldiers, promising them that the military campaign will begin at dawn. Alone with her waiting women, Nephté says she can see no escape from her predicament: if she seeks revenge, her son's life will be in danger; if she does not, justice will not be done and she will be a criminal. Her waiting women try to comfort her, but Nephté asks to be alone. Amédès now enters, shadowed by
Chemmis. Amédès tells Nephté he is in danger and the gods seem to have abandoned them, but the priests will defend her son to the death. Chemmis emerges and threatens Amédès but the priest says he is willing to sacrifice his life. However, Nephté vows to die in his place to secure revenge for her husband. News comes that the soldiers have found her son's hiding place. The people arrive and beg Nephté to marry Pharès. Nephté finally agrees.In an aside, she reveals she has a secret plan.
449:
says that it is only the thought of her child which keeps her alive, otherwise life is barren for her without Séthos. She asks the priests to reveal who killed him. When the arrival of her brother-in-law Pharès is announced, the priests are horrified and Nephté begins to suspect he is the murderer. Pharès tries to flatter Nephté. He also claims it was Séthos' dying wish that he should become her new husband. Nephté admits this is true but she thinks it wrong to talk of marriage while Séthos is still unavenged. However, Pharès seems reluctant to search for the assassin, but at Nephté's insistence he finally agrees to swear on his brother's tomb that he will bring the criminal to justice. The priests are shocked at this sacrilege. After Pharès has left, the chief priest Amédès reveals what Nephté has suspected: Pharès is the killer. Nephté demands vengeance, but she also fears for her son's safety. Amédès agrees to hide the boy among the tombs. He says it will be difficult to get revenge because Pharès is both respected and feared by the
Egyptians. The temple opens as the statesmen and common people arrive for Séthos' funeral rites. The temple girls reveal that Sethos is now an immortal in heaven. Nephté implores the Egyptians to avenge her husband. They swear on the altar to do so. Amédès says he will reveal the murderer's name that evening.
206:"The whole of the right-hand side of the theatre should represent an arid mountain, beneath which twelve crypts or sepulchral grottoes have been carved out of the rock. Each of these grottoes contains the tomb of one of the kings of Egypt and each is lit by a funeral lamp. Séthos' tomb is the first and appears the newest to be built. Four priests, robed in linen, are sitting on four stones placed at the four corners of the tomb. The left-hand side is occupied by the façade of the palace of Memphis. At the far edge of the mountain rises the Great Temple of Osiris (or the Sun), of which only the doors are visible. This temple occupies only part of the background so that in the gap between it and the caves we can see in the distance some of the fertile fields which border the Nile, and one of the pyramids, whose top is lost on the horizon. An avenue of colossal sphinxes leads from the temple to the palace portico. The space remaining between the sphinxes and the caves is planted with cypress trees. Day has not yet broken and the theatre seems illuminated only by the light from the funeral lamps."
475:
go ahead. The priests, soldiers and people enter for the ceremony. Nephté sees her son amid the procession. Pharès is pleased to find Nephté already at the temple; she promises to be faithful to him unto death. The ceremony takes place and Nephté and Pharès both drink from the wedding cup. In an aside, Nephté reveals she has poisoned it. Amédès enters and announces that Séthos' murderer is Pharès. Amédès is about to stab Pharès when Nephté halts him. She tells everyone Séthos is already avenged: she has poisoned Pharès and herself. The enraged Pharès is led away to die offstage. Nephté dies after she has had her son proclaimed the new king of Egypt.
88:"Camma, daughter of Leonorius, married Silatus, King of Galatia. Sinorix, Silatus' kinsman, had him assassinated so he could seize his crown and his wife. As he was loved by the soldiers, he took the throne with ease; but Camma continued to maintain an inflexible resistance to him. Finally, the queen, abandoned by everyone, threatened by Sinorix, little respected by her rebellious people, was forced to give her hand in marriage to the murderer of her husband. But, faithful to her previous vows, and preserving in her heart as much love for Sinatus as horror for his murderer, she poisoned the wedding cup, and died with the usurper."
111:. However, Hoffman avoided using Corneille because, to suit the fashion of the times, Corneille had introduced love interest to the plot. The widowed queen is not devoted to her dead husband but in love with a young prince she wishes to make king in the usurper's place. Hoffman writes that he had preferred to "preserve the historical episode in all its purity", refusing such additions.
461:
Pharès is angry that Amédès might reveal his guilt. Chemmis says that the people still love him and to cement his position as new king, he should be crowned and marry Nephté that very day. But Pharès suggests that he will only be safe when Amédès is dead and
Chemmis promises to kill him if he reveals
217:
was first performed at the Académie Royale de
Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 15 December 1789. The young soprano Madame Maillard took the title role, replacing Lemoyne's protégée Antoinette Saint-Huberty. According to some sources, the premiere was so successful, Lemoyne was called onto the stage after
474:
Nephté enters alone and calls on the gods to help her carry out her plan. Soon she will die but her son will be saved. She reveals nothing of this to Amédès, who is amazed she has agreed to marry Pharès. Amédès is prepared to risk his life by naming Pharès as the murderer rather than let the wedding
244:
was more guarded, liking some aspects, but finding the work too static and emotionally uniform. It suggested this might have been remedied had Nephté's motivation been changed: instead of guessing Pharès' guilt almost from the beginning, she might have only slowly come to realise the truth, possibly
54:
The plot concerns Nephté, Queen of Egypt, whose husband King Séthos has been murdered by his brother Pharès. The widowed queen seeks revenge with the help of the high priest Amédès. However, Pharès has the support of the army and aims to take the throne and to marry Nephté himself. He also threatens
222:
ran for 39 performances, the last given on 18 March 1792. Hoffman angrily claimed that the withdrawal of the work was to prevent him receiving the pension which would have been his due had it reached 40 performances. In support of
Hoffman's argumemnt is the fact that the season did not end until 27
448:
It is just before dawn. Four priests are mourning the death of King Séthos. They wish he had died an honourable death in battle, but the terrible truth is that he was murdered by the brother he loved. Dawn breaks as Queen Nephté arrives with her young son to pay tribute to her dead husband. Nephté
119:
The major change
Hoffman made was to alter the names and setting. He moved the scene of the action to ancient Egypt (in "mythological times")"to introduce new costumes and new manners to the stage of the Opéra." Plutarch's Camma is renamed Nephté, Sinatus becomes Séthos and Sinorix becomes Pharès.
294:. The exotic subject was seemingly at a safe remove from the political situation of 1789, but the scholar Mark Darlow believes that the opera's themes of royal legitimacy and usurpation and concern for the future survival of a dynasty would have had contemporary resonance.
268:, representative of the Italian school. This caused difficulties for native French composers, such as Lemoyne, who found it hard to devise a style of their own. Lemoyne had promoted himself as a member of the Gluckist camp with his first opera for Paris,
737:), and Le Roux cadet, were soloist of the Paris Opéra, while Poussez and Legrand were members of the Choir classed as basses-tailles (cf. list of "actors and actresses singing in the Choirs" reported in the
231:
on artistic grounds, against the recommendations of the Opéra board. On the other hand, ticket receipts had recently been falling off as the opera was losing popularity in spite of the good press it enjoyed.
55:
the life of Nephté's son. Eventually, Nephté agrees to marry Pharès but she poisons the wedding cup, killing both the usurper and herself and allowing her son to succeed to the throne as king of Egypt.
280:
was regarded as an opera in the
Gluckian vein, with its emphasis on "majesty and sobriety" and its simple, direct plot (there are only four main characters). It was dedicated to Gluck's champion,
245:
after being infatuated with the usurper. Other critics complained about the lack of the dance —customary in French opera—, which in their opinion made the work monotonous. In a later assessment,
120:
Hoffman writes that he had not invented the name "Nephté". Citing the German theologian and antiquarian Paul Ernst
Jablonski, he says that "Nephté" is a conflation of two Egyptian gods,
159:, Hoffman took the idea that it was forbidden for women to inherit the throne of Egypt, an important plot point in the opera. He also researched details of Egyptian funerary rites in
223:
March, allowing time for another staging. Hoffman had also dedicated the libretto to
Antoinette Saint-Huberty, who was disliked by the Opéra management, and had refused to add dance
260:
appeared when the French musical world was still divided between the supporters of two foreign composers who had made their mark on Paris in the 1770s: the German
854:
839:
814:
849:
136:), signifying "wisdom" and "courage". Hoffman was also struck by the similarities between the plot of the opera and the Egyptian myth of
187:
was more positive, their report describing the work as "one of the darkest and most beautiful, both in its libretto and its score."
249:
criticised the music for being "harsh and loud, with the exception of a few pieces, as one would expect from a disciple of Gluck."
22:
834:
423:: 25 young maidens of the Temple of Osiris; grandees of the state, priests, Nephté's waiting women; soldiers, Egyptian people
195:
Hoffman also used his research into
Egyptian history to provide detailed descriptions for the scenery, which was designed by
36:
246:
99:
In his preface to the printed libretto, Hoffman noted that the story had been used before on the French stage. In 1661,
240:
Reviews were generally favourable, with praise for the music, the scenery and the singing of Maillard and Lainez. The
607:
183:, only liked operas with "plots concerning incest, poison or assassinations". The response of the Opéra committee to
776:
556:
545:
534:
514:
284:. On the other hand, some features, such as the lavish and exotic scenery were not part of the Gluckian aesthetic.
175:
Lemoyne spent a long time working on the score. There are references to its composition as early as November 1787.
628:
261:
180:
196:
505:
translated by Donald Russell (Oxford University Press, World's Classics, 1993), pages 327—328 and 278—279
272:, in 1782. However, it failed and Gluck refused to accept Lemoyne as his disciple, so for his next work,
844:
265:
31:
144:. The goddess Isis "was always faithful to Osiris, her brother and husband; she took vengeance on
806:
133:
810:
338:
291:
176:
156:
751:). In the same list Le Roux, as a former member of the Choir, was numbered among the tailles.
805:, Madrid, Ediciones Singulares, 2013 (book accompanying the complete recording conducted by
659:
281:
164:
104:
100:
796:
Antoine Dauvergne (1713—1797): une carrière tourmentée dans la France musicale des Lumières
829:
742:
734:
145:
747:
801:
Benoït Dratwicki, "Foreigners at the Académie Royale de Musique" in Antonio Sacchini,
179:, of the Opéra management, complained that Lemoyne and his pupil, the leading soprano
823:
349:
738:
218:
the final curtain, the first time this had happened in the history of the Opéra.
396:
26:
786:
Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789–1794
199:. Hoffman printed one such description in the stage directions for Act 1 of
160:
497:. Plutarch also tells the story —slightly differently— in another essay,
276:(1786), Lemoyne tried a more Italianate style in the manner of Piccinni.
78:
48:
493:
320:
125:
44:
471:
Scene: the Temple of Osiris (or the Sun), with an altar in the middle
141:
333:
149:
121:
40:
137:
129:
458:
Scene: the palace hall with the throne of the kings of Egypt
735:
Chanteurs de l'Opéra, Association "l'Art Lyrique Français"
627:
Darlow, p.232. However, a similar claim has been made for
77:
on the story of Camma, Queen of Galatia, which occurs in
25:, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the
525:
Darlow, p.234, says this is unfair to Corneille's play.
39:, is set in Ancient Egypt but is based on the story of
760:
See section "Scenery" above for a fuller description
148:, Osiris' murderer, and saved the crown for her son
515:"Trait historique" in the published libretto, p.9
653:Darlow, p.233, referring to the reviews of the
29:) on 15 December 1789. It takes the form of a
8:
557:Hoffman in the published libretto, pp.10—11
435:Setting: the palace of the Kings of Memphis
290:was premiered towards the beginning of the
697:Quoted by Dratwicki, in "Foreigners", p.61
535:Hoffman in the published libretto, pp.9—10
301:
546:Hoffman in the published libretto, p.10
484:
264:, famous for his operatic reforms, and
91:
608:Published libretto, beginning of Act 1
445:Scene: the tombs of the kings of Egypt
390:Pierre-Charles Le Roux (the younger),
7:
21:is an opera by the French composer
85:Hoffman summarised Plutarch thus:
14:
706:Dratwicki, "Foreigners", pp.61—62
47:taken from the ancient historian
855:Adaptations of works by Plutarch
788:, Oxford University Press, 2012.
777:1790 edition of the libretto of
385:basses-tailles (bass-baritones)
171:Lemoyne and the Opéra management
35:in three acts. The libretto, by
840:Operas by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
724:Dalow, p.231—232 and pp.242–243
377:Marie-Wilhelmine de Rousselois
371:Maiden of the Temple of Osiris
633:L'union des arts et de l'amour
325:Marie Thérèse Davoux Maillard
1:
503:Selected Essays and Dialogues
401:basse-taille (bass-baritone)
388:Châteaufort, Poussez, Legrand
363:basse-taille (bass-baritone)
124:(the equivalent of the Roman
715:Darlow, p.234 and pp.240—247
663:(December 20), the moniteur
107:) had presented his tragedy
103:(brother of the more famous
850:Operas set in ancient Egypt
871:
618:Darlow, p.232, footnote 49
311:Premiere, 15 December 1789
59:Background and composition
798:, Editions Mardaga, 2011.
733:Châteaufort (ad nomen in
657:(16 December 1789), the
419:
262:Christoph Willibald Gluck
247:Jean-François de La Harpe
242:Correspondence littéraire
181:Antoinette Saint-Huberty
631:at the premiere of his
155:From the Dutch scholar
109:Camma, Reine de Galatie
94:Camma, Reine de Galatie
37:François-Benoît Hoffman
835:French-language operas
665:(21 December) and the
629:Étienne-Joseph Floquet
282:Queen Marie-Antoinette
580:, p.387, footnote 156
382:Priests of the tombs
355:Martin-Joseph Adrien
23:Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
635:at the Opéra in 1773
409:Nephté's infant son
115:The Egyptian setting
210:Performance history
197:Pierre-Adrien Pâris
92:Thomas Corneille's
807:Christophe Rousset
794:Benoït Dratwicki,
655:Chronique de Paris
644:Darlow, pp.232—233
598:Darlow, pp.235—236
815:978-84-939-6865-6
739:original libretto
667:Mercure de France
578:Antoine Dauvergne
427:
426:
292:French Revolution
177:Antoine Dauvergne
157:Cornelius de Pauw
69:Camma in Plutarch
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501:. See Plutarch,
489:
302:
266:Niccolò Piccinni
165:Diodorus Siculus
101:Thomas Corneille
83:Virtues in Women
32:tragédie lyrique
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225:divertissements
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669:(26 December).
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339:Étienne Lainez
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73:Hoffman based
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784:Mark Darlow,
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350:bass-baritone
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491:Part of the
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404:Châteaufort
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30:
17:
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845:1789 operas
792:(in French)
774:(in French)
576:Dratwicki,
308:Voice type
132:(the Roman
43:, Queen of
27:Paris Opéra
824:Categories
479:References
412:mute role
366:Dufresne
236:Reception
161:Herodotus
81:'s essay
499:Eroticus
430:Synopsis
374:soprano
360:Chemmis
253:The work
79:Plutarch
64:Libretto
49:Plutarch
768:Sources
743:Salieri
494:Moralia
345:Amédès
330:Pharès
321:soprano
317:Nephté
270:Électre
191:Scenery
126:Minerva
45:Galatia
830:Operas
813:
803:Renaud
779:Nephté
748:Tarare
421:Chorus
288:Nephté
278:Nephté
274:Phèdre
258:Nephté
229:Nephté
220:Nephté
215:Nephté
201:Nephté
185:Nephté
146:Typhon
142:Osiris
134:Vulcan
128:) and
105:Pierre
75:Nephté
18:Nephté
466:Act 3
453:Act 2
440:Act 1
397:Hymen
334:tenor
305:Cast
298:Roles
150:Horus
122:Neith
41:Camma
811:ISBN
163:and
140:and
138:Isis
130:Ptah
809:).
745:'s
741:of
227:to
152:."
826::
352:)
203::
167:.
51:.
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