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Les Danaïdes (1784) - Antonio Salieri
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Background
Antonio Salieri began work on Les Danaïdes upon the recommendation of Gluck, whose health prevented him from fulfilling a commission for the work. Although Salieri was living in Vienna, the tragedie-lyrique was written for the Opéra in Paris, with a libretto by François Louis Gand Leblanc Roullet and Ludwig Theodor Tschudi based on Calzabigi’s Italian libretto.
Prior to the premiere of Les Danaïdes on 26 April 1784, Gluck was advertised as the main composer, perhaps to ensure the opera’s performance. Emperor Joseph II assured that Salieri wrote the music “almost under the dictée of Gluck,” in a letter (dated 31 March 1783) to Count Mercy-Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador in Paris. Then Mercy told the directors of the Opéra that Gluck had composed the first two acts, and Salieri supplied the third act’s music (Mercy did not realize the opera was in five acts). Even when the libretto was published, Gluck and Salieri shared billing as the composers. However, Gluck, who had been devastated by the failure of his last Paris opera, Echo et Narcisse, was concerned that Les Danaïdes would suffer a similar fate. He wrote to Roullet the same day that the opera premiered, crediting Salieri with the entire work, and the press noted this confession. Subsequently, Salieri further exploited Gluck’s reputation, claiming that he was “led by [Gluck’s] wisdom and enlightened by his genius” (Journal de Paris, 18 May 1784).
In fact, Ignaz von Mosel wrote of Les Danaïdes in his 1827 tome on Salieri, in reference to a passage that both Salieri and Gluck disliked. Gluck is quoted as saying, “You are right, my dear friend, the whole aria is good, but this passage with which you are dissatisfied displeases me too; but I cannot find the problem.” After Salieri sang the aria three times, Mosel explained, “And indeed they found that this idea had been introduced more for its artistic effect than for other necessary reasons.”
Salieri was certainly aware of his role in continuing the Gluckian tradition of the tragedie lyrique, with the attention to the relationship between text and music. The orchestral recitatives, choruses, and ballets also follow the model for French opera supplied by Gluck. Furthermore, the music itself is infused with the “noble simplicity” that characterizes the elder composer’s reform operas. At the same time, a lyricism associated with Piccinni and Sacchini, who also composed for Paris, can be heard in Les Danaïdes.
Plot
In Act One, Danaus has arranged for his fifty daughters, the Danaids, to marry the fifty sons of his dead brother and enemy Egyptus. He has promised Lyncée, Egyptus’s oldest son, that this massive wedding will reconcile the family. Lyncée is pleased with the arrangement, as he and Hypermnestre, Danaus’s oldest daughter who he loves, will marry.
Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, appears in her dungeon in Act Two. The Danaids learn there that the treaty is actually a plot concocted by Danaus to seek revenge on Egyptus and his sons. The daughters promise to Nemesis that they will fulfill Danaus’s plan, and the sons of Eygptus will die on their wedding night. However, Hypermnestre refrains from this oath, to the dismay of Danaus, who has heard from an oracle that he will be killed by one of his brother’s sons if his revenge is not carried out. When Hypermnestre is by herself, she wishes for her own death, rather than to kill her beloved.
The third act centers on the wedding celebration. Hypermnestre still hopes to save Lyncée, but Danaus refuses to compromise. Finally, Hypermnestre insists to Lyncée that the two cannot remain together. At the end of the act, the Danaids have begun their slaughter on Egyptus’s sons, but Lyncée escapes.
Hypermnestre and Lyncée struggle with the emotional turmoil of their situation in the briefer fourth act. At the end of the act, Hypermnestre faints.
In Act Five, Danaus learns that Hypermnestre has spared her beloved, and he commands the Danaids to murder Lyncée. It is the Danaids who are killed, though, by Lyncée’s army, which has attacked Danaus’s palace. Danaus then decides to kill his own daughter Hypermnestre, but he is stopped by the sword of one of Lyncée’s brothers. At the end of the opera, the palace is in flames, and the scene changes to the underworld, showing the fate of Danaus and his daughters. Danaus, whose entrails have been consumed by a vulture, is shackled to a rock, and his daughters are also bound there. A chorus of furies sings of the eternal torture that Danaus and the Danaids will endure.
Bibliography
Title from title page: LES / DANAÏDES, / TRAGÉDIE LIRIQUE / en cinq Actes
Genre: Tragédie lyrique
Composer: Antonio Salieri, 1750-1825
Librettist (French): Marie François Louis Gand Leblanc Roullet, 1716-1786 and Ludwig Theodor Tschudi, dates unknown
After an Italian libretto by: Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, (1714-1795)
Libretto based on: Aeschylus’s trilogy, of which The Suppliant Woman is extant
Setting: Ancient Greece
Premiere: Paris, Opéra, 26 April 1784
First published: Paris: Des Lauriers, 1784
Volume in the UNT Collection: Paris: Des Lauriers, 1784
For further information on Les Danaïdes, see:
Angermüller, Rudolph. Antonio Salieri: Sein Leben und seine weltliche Werke unter besondere Berücksichtigung seiner “grossen” Opern. Munich: Katzbichler, 1971.
Braunbehrens, Volkmar. Salieri: ein Musiker im Schatten Mozarts. Munich: Piper, 1989.
Mosel, Ignaz von. Über das Leben und die Werke des Anton Salieri. Vienna, 1827.
Rice, John A. Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
________. “Danaïdes, Les.” Grove Music Online, ed. Laura Macy. [Accessed 17 December 2003]. <http://www.grovemusic.com>
Swenson, Edward. Antonio Salieri: a Documentary Biography. Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1974.
Physical
Dimensions: 32.8 x 26.1 cm.
Collation: [20: unsigned, 1-702]; 140 leaves, pp. [4] 1-274 [275-276].
Conservation: Bleed-through; stained and dirty pages; tape used to repair pages; some untrimmed pages; loose hinges.
Binding: Green paper-covered board and spine.
Comments: Copper-plate engraving (plates measure 28.8 x 21.5 cm).