Cora (opera)

Cora is an opera in four acts by the French composer Étienne Méhul. The libretto, by Valadier,^[1] is based on the novel Les Incas by Jean-François Marmontel. It was the first opera Méhul wrote but the second to be performed, receiving its premiere at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 15 February 1791. Cora was not a success and there were only four more performances (18, 20, 25 February and 4 March).^[2]

Méhul in 1799 – portrait by Antoine Gros

Background

In 1784 the Académie Royale de Musique held a competition for new libretti. From the 58 candidates the judges chose three winners: Chabanon's Le toison d'or, Guillard's Œdipe à Colone and Valadier's Alonzo et Cora. Chabanon's libretto was never set;^[3] Guillard's provided Antonio Sacchini with the text for his most famous opera (premiered in 1786); and Valadier's was handed to Méhul.^[4] Since arriving in Paris in the late 1770s Méhul had published two sets of keyboard sonatas and written or arranged vocal works for the Concert Spirituel, but this was his first opportunity to compose an opera. He set to work writing the score in 1785-86 and in 1787 his supporters, the composer Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne and the man of letters Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard, urged the Académie to stage the work.^[5] It went into rehearsal on 10 June 1789 but was abandoned on 8 August. The reasons for this delay are unknown, but the Académie was suffering from severe financial difficulties at the time.^[6]

Frustrated at his lack of progress at the Académie Royale, Méhul turned to its rival the Opéra Comique, which staged his debut Euphrosine on 4 September 1790. The great success of this work prompted the Académie Royale to dust off Alonzo et Cora (now retitled simply Cora) for a performance on 15 February 1791. However, the piece was a failure; the musicologist Arthur Pougin blames this on the inadequacies of the libretto rather than Méhul's music.^[7]

Style

According to the Méhul scholar Elizabeth Bartlet, the music of Cora demonstrates "not only [Méhul's] indebtedness to the 'reform' operas of Gluck and Salieri but also his awareness of symphonic style (particularly Haydn's) and his interest in dynamic, large-scale ensembles - both of which were unusual for the period."^[8]

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast
Ataliba, King of Quito	tenor/baritone	François Lays
Alonso, a Spanish general	haute-contre	Jean-Joseph Rousseau [it][9]
The High Priest	basse-taille (bass-baritone)	Auguste-Athanase (Augustin) Chéron
Cora	soprano	Adélaïde Gavaudan, "cadette"
Zémor, Cora's father	tenor/baritone	Louis-Claude-Armand Chardin (stage name, "Chardini")
Zélia, Cora's mother	soprano	Marie-Thérèse Davoux (stage name, "Mlle Maillard")
Zulma, Cora's friend	soprano	Mlle Mullot
A warrior	basse-taille	Martin

References

1. The sources do not give any first names.
2. Pougin p.61
3. The contemporary opera of the same name by Vogel has a libretto by Philippe Desriaux.
4. Pougin, pp.39-40
5. Bartlet pp. vii and xi
6. De Place, p.28
7. Pougin pp.60-61
8. Bartlet, page x
9. 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

• Adélaïde de Place Étienne Nicolas Méhul (Bleu Nuit Éditeur, 2005)
• Arthur Pougin Méhul: sa vie, son génie, son caractère (Fischbacher, 1889)
• General introduction to Méhul's operas in the introduction to the edition of Stratonice by M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet (Pendragon Press, 1997)