MÉHUL, Etienne-Nicolas 1763-1817

Stratonice ... Opéra Complet Dialogué Partition de Piano et Chant Paroles Françaises Édition de Luxe et de Propriété. [Piano-vocal score]

Paris: Mme Vve Launer [PN Ve. L. 3484], [ca. 1845].

Large octavo. Marbled boards with octagonal cut-paper label to upper titled in manuscript. [i] (title within decorative border), [ii] (note on Méhul), [i] (cast list and incipits), 112 pp. Engraved, with "Gravé par Melle. Damours" printed at lower inner margin of first page of music.

Binding slightly worn, rubbed, and bumped; spine reinforced with dark red tape. Some browning; first leaves foxed, more heavily at margins; scattered foxing throughout; occasional manuscript annotations; small oval handstamps to lower margin of title.

Stratonice, to a libretto by Hoffmann after De Dea Syria (attributed to Lucian) and T. Corneille, was first performed in Paris at the Comédie-Italienne (Favart) on 3 May 1792.

"In the 1780s developments in operas on ‘chevaleresque’ subjects anticipated directions that Revolutionary opera was to take. Nevertheless, Hoffman’s librettos for Euphrosine (1790), set at the time of the Crusades, and Stratonice (1792), on a classical legend, mark a turning-point. Drawing on techniques in dramatic construction, characterization and versification from the spoken comédie and drame, [Méhul] produced a richer, more varied and flexible form ... Cherubini’s favourite Méhul opera, Stratonice, shows the consolidation and polishing of techniques and approaches evident in Euphrosine. The result is a consistent, mature work in which attention to balance and nuance within a modern style belies common assumptions about Revolutionary music. Méhul matched the classical subject with music in a noble style inspired by Opéra models.

[Méhul] was one of the leading composers in Paris during the Revolution, Consulate and Empire. His works for the Opéra-Comique increased the range in subject and tone of the theatre’s repertory; the serious lyric drames, in particular, were influential models for his contemporaries and praised by later composers such as Weber, Berlioz and Wagner." M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet in Grove Music Online.

Item #29329

Price: $75.00  other currencies