André Ernest Modeste Grétry (1741-1813)
- Panurge dans l'île des lanternes (1785)
Performers: Jacqueline Sternotte (soprano); Blanche Gerard (soprano);
Marie Laurence (soprano); Jean-Jacques Schreurs (ténor); Jean Segani
(basse);
Ensemble vocal et Orchestre de Chambre de la RTB;
Jacques Houtmann
(conductor)
---
French composer of Walloon descent. Grétry was the second of six
children, the son of a musician and violinist at the collegiate church
of St Denis in Liège. As a boy he entered the choir school of St Denis,
where he later learnt the violin. He was sent to H.J. Renkin and Henri
Moreau for counterpoint and composition lessons. But a crucial
experience was the visit of Crosa and Resta’s Italian comic-opera troupe
(1753-1755). After producing a Mass, given at St Denis, and a set of
six symphonies given at the house of its provost, he was awarded a place
at the Collège Darchis in Rome. He departed in spring 1760. In Rome he
studied mainly with Giovanni Casali. He moved to Geneva in 1766, wrote
concertos for Lord Abingdon, and got to know Voltaire and his circle at
Ferney. In Geneva Grétry first heard and saw opéra comique performed by a
troupe for whom he provided a score in December 1766: Isabelle et
Gertrude. The path to success in Paris, where Grétry arrived the
following year, was not smooth, but the young composer had the manners
and personality to win necessary patronage and support. Backed by the
Swedish Count of Creutz, Grétry established a partnership with the
well-known writer and critic Jean François Marmontel, who had
collaborated with Rameau (1751-53) and Josef Kohaut. Their sequence of
six opéras comiques was exceedingly successful, and work together
stopped only when Marmontel’s projects failed to pass the
reading-committees of the Comédie-Italienne. The impact of these works
and Le tableau parlant (1769) made Grétry a popular figure, and he
became ultimately a quite wealthy and influential man. In 1771 he
married Jeanne-Marie Grandon (1746-1807), daughter of a painter, who
bore him three daughters; all died young. Lucile Grétry (1772-1790), the
second child, wrote two operas, which her father orchestrated and
revised.
Family life was central to Grétry’s existence: his mother came to live
with him, and in 1796 he took responsibility for the children of his
recently deceased brother. His homespun sense of probity did not hinder a
great sense of pride in his own achievements. Grétry’s Mémoires are
essential reading for the detailed account of his operas, his musical
and dramatic theories and his unabashed self-projection. In his text De
la vérité (Paris, 1801) he makes himself into a born republican, though
in reality he had been on close terms with the French royal family, as
well as other grandees. Les deux avares and L’amitié à l’épreuve were
first given in 1770 during court celebrations of the wedding of the
Dauphin and Marie Antoinette; the latter work was dedicated to her.
L’ami de la maison and Zémire et Azor were first given the following
year at court, and the latter was dedicated to the king’s mistress, Mme
du Barry. Marie Antoinette showed a marked liking for Grétry’s music and
appointed him as her personal director of music once she had acceded as
queen in 1774. Grétry’s fame spread throughout Europe. The Grand
Théâtre in Brussels obtained the rights to new, unpublished works and
Grétry made triumphal trips to Liège in 1776 and 1782 to receive
official honours. He was made an inspector of the Comédie-Italienne in
1787, and was pensioned by the Opéra and made Royal Censor for Music.
Grétry was honoured under the Revolution and the Empire, but declined to
contribute to the basic work of the Paris Conservatoire. He had few
pupils; Dalayrac was admitted to his study informally. As a composer, he
made decisive contributions to the scope and style of the 18th-century
opéra comique, and to technical aspects such as musical ‘local colour’
and the design of overtures. His opéras comiques and recitative comedies
for the Paris Opéra enjoyed unparalleled success in the 20 years up to
the French Revolution.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada