| Operas by Ernest Reyer |
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Salammbô is an opera in five acts composed by Ernest Reyer to a French libretto by Camille du Locle. It is based on the novel Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert (1862). The opera was first performed at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels on 10 February 1890. The American premiere was at the French Opera House in New Orleans on 25 January 1900 with Lina Pacary in the title role. This rarely nowadays performed opera received the last performance in Paris Opera in 1943, and the most recent one in Marseilles on 27 September 2008, in commemoration of 100th anniversary of Reyer's death[1].
Contents |
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, (Conductor: ) |
|---|---|---|
| Hamilcar, Carthaginian leader | baritone | Maurice Renaud |
| Salammbô, a priestess, Hamilcar's daughter | soprano | Rose Caron |
| Taanach, Salammbo's servant | mezzo-soprano | |
| Shahabarim, high priest of Tanit | tenor | Edmond Vergnet |
| Narr'Havas, King of Numidia | bass | Sentein |
| Giscon, Carthaginian general | bass | Peeters |
| Mathô, chief Libyan mercenary | tenor | Henri Sellier |
| Spendius, Greek slave | baritone | Max Bouvet |
| Autharite, Gaulish mercenary | bass | Challet |
In 1863, Modeste Mussorgsky also started writing text and music for an opera based on Flaubert's novel, but he never managed to complete the work. Other versions were written by V. Fornari (1881), Niccolò Massa (1886), Eugeniusz Morawski-Dąbrowa, Josef Matthias Hauer (1930), Alfredo Cuscinà (1931), Veselin Stoyanov (1940) and Franco Casavola (1948). Contemporary French composer Philippe Fénélon's Salammbô was first performed in the Opéra Bastille in 1998.
For the film score of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, Bernard Herrmann wrote a quasi-Romantic aria for the fictional opera Salammbô performed by Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander. The text is based on a speech by Jean Racine for the play Phèdre. According to Tim Dirks it was actually John Houseman who composed the aria.