Daniel-François-Esprit Auber: Le Domino noir

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782 1871) was long considered one of the most typically French as well as one of the most successful of the opera composers of the 19th century. Although musically gifted, he initially chose commerce as a career, but soon realized that his future lay in music. He studied under Cherubini, and it was not long before his opéra-comique La Bergère Châteleine (1820), written at the age of 38, established him as an operatic composer. Perhaps the greatest turning point in Auber s life was his meeting with the librettist Eugène Scribe (1791 1861), with whom he developed a long and illustrious working partnership that ended only with Scribe s death. Success followed success; works such as Le Maçon (1825) and La Muette de Portici (1828) brought Auber public fame and official recognition. In 1829 he was appointed a member of the Institut, in 1839 Director of Concerts at Court, in 1842 Director of the Conservatoire, in 1852 Musical Director of the Imperial Chapel, and in 1861 Grand Officer of the Légion d Honneur. Auber seems to have been fated to live in revolutionary times; during his long life no less than four revolutions took place in France (1789, 1830, 1848, 1870). Auber s famous historical grand opera La Muette de Portici (also known by its hero s name as Masaniello) is perhaps unsurprisingly based on revolution, depicting the 1647 Neapolitan uprising against Spanish rule. It is a key work in operatic history, and has a revolutionary history itself: it was a performance of this work in Brussels in 1830 that helped spark the revolution that led to the separation of Belgium from Holland. It was a revolution that hastened Auber s death at the old age of 89. He died on 12 May 1871 as a result of a long illness aggravated by the privations and dangers of the Siege of Paris. He had refused to leave the city he had always loved, even after his house had been set on fire by the petroleurs et petroleuses. In a twist of fate, a mark had been placed on the house of the composer of Masaniello, the very voice of Romantic liberty! Auber s overtures were once instantly recognizable, favourites of the light Classical repertoire. His gracious melodies and dance rhythms had a huge influence, both on piano and instrumental music, and on the genre of Romantic comic opera, especially in Germany. Musical tastes and fashions have changed, and contemporary audiences are more accustomed to the heavier fare of verismo, high Wagnerian ideology, and twentieth-century experimentalism. The operas themselves, apart from Fra Diavolo (1830), are seldom performed, yet Auber s elegant, delicate and restrained art remains as appealing to the discerning listener as ever it was. Le Domino noir, an opéra-comique in three acts, with libretto by Eugène Scribe, was premiered at the Opéra-Comique (Salle de la place de la Bourse/Salle des Nouveautés) on 2 December 1837. It was an instant success, and remained hugely popular. The music is employed with economy, mellifluous, but pared and pointed. Its wit and elements of parody look forward to Jacques Offenbach. The action takes place in Madrid, around 1780; Angèle, a noblewoman who is about to take solemn vows and become the Abbess of a convent at the behest of the Queen of Spain, nonetheless still attends masked balls, disguised in a black domino. At one of the balls she falls in love with the handsome and eligible Horace de Massarena, who is equally smitten. Horace attends the installation of the new abbess and sees Angèle about to receive this great honour. Suddenly a messenger from the Queen of Spain appears, ordering the convent to select a new abbess and releasing Angèle from her vows. She and Horace are now free to marry.