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The Staging of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes as Seen by a Cellist in the Orchestra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2014

John A. Rice
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Abstract

During the 1780s a cellist in the orchestra of the Opéra, known only as Monsieur Hivart, served the Russian Count Nicholas Sheremetev as an operatic agent, sending scores, librettos, costume designs, stage designs and other materials related to opera in Paris, and advising the count on the production of French operas in Russia. Hivart was in contact with such composers as Grétry, Sacchini and Piccinni, and the stage machinist and ballet master of the Opéra, and from his place in the orchestra he could watch their work take shape on stage. This gives his letters to Sheremetev (published in Russian translation in 1944 but largely unknown in the West) significant value for historians of opera in eighteenth-century Paris. Especially extensive are Hivart’s reports on the first production of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes, which contain much information about the first production available nowhere else.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 65 - 82
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2014 

In 1785 William Bennet, an English traveller in Paris, attended a performance of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes at the Académie Royale de Musique, the venerable institution founded by Louis XIV, informally known as the Opéra. The performance deeply impressed Bennet, who wrote:

The music loud and noisy in the French taste, and the singers screamed past all power of simile to represent. The scenery was very good, no people understanding the jeu de theatre or tricks of the stage, so well as the French. We had in the dark scenes not above one light, and in the bright ones above twenty large chandeliers, so as to make a wonderful contrast, nor was there the least error or blunder in changing the scenes, except once when a candle pulled up too hastily, was very near to setting fire to a whole grove of trees. The stage being deeper than ours, was filled sometimes with fifty persons, a great advantage to the Chorus’s and bustling parts … Our Opera ended with a representation of Hell, in which the fifty Danaides were hauled and pulled about as if the Devils had been going to ravish them. Several of them in the violence of the French action being literally thrown flat upon their backs; and they were all at last buried in such a shower of fire, that I wonder the Playhouse was not burned to the ground.Footnote 1

How did the scenic designers, machinists and stagehands of the Opéra produce the spectacular images that Bennet enjoyed? The question is not easy to answer, because those who staged opera in the eighteenth century resembled magicians in their reluctance to share with the public what Bennet called the ‘tricks of the stage’. While musicians such as Quantz, C.P.E. Bach and Leopold Mozart communicated their experience as players of the flute, the keyboard and the violin eagerly and in detail, stage designers, fearing that the effectiveness of their visual magic would diminish in proportion to the audience’s knowledge of how they produced their effects, remained silent. There is no eighteenth-century manual on theatrical staging that could be called a counterpart to the books on musical performance by Quantz and others.

The silence of stage designers has forced historians to look elsewhere for evidence about the staging of opera. For the elaborate productions at the Opéra, scholars have derived information from such sources as the articles on stagecraft in Diderot’s Encyclopédie; statements by audience members such as Bennet; images of stage machinery, stage designs and costume designs; reminiscences of singers, actors and other theatrical personnel; reports in the French press, payment records, promptbooks, librettos, and scores.Footnote 2 Yet another source of information about staging, not yet fully exploited by historians, is a collection of letters written by a member of the orchestra of the Opéra in the 1780s and 1790s that not only describes the stage action of several operas but also explains how the effects were achieved. This article begins with a preliminary report on the correspondence to which these letters belong (published in Russian translation in 1944 but still largely unknown in the West); it then focuses on what the letters tell us about the staging of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes (1784), the composer’s first opera for Paris, and a great success.

The Sheremetev–Hivart correspondence and Hivart’s shipments to Russia

Count Nicholas Sheremetev (also transcribed Sheremetyev), born in 1751, was one of the richest members of the Russian nobility and the owner of 200,000 serfs. He experienced French opera during a Grand Tour in the 1770s, and devoted much of the rest of his life to opera. In a little theatre at his palace of Kuskovo, near Moscow, his serfs served as stagehands, orchestra players and singers – the most celebrated of whom, the soprano Prascovia, became his mistress and eventually his wife. In the 1790s he built a more elaborate theatre at another palace, Ostankino, that survives to this day.Footnote 3

Most of the operas that Nicholas presented were French operas in Russian translation. His fondness for opéra comique reflected the taste of the imperial court at St Petersburg. More unexpected is his interest in tragédie lyrique – a genre that used not only solo singing but also chorus, ballet and spectacular sets in operas often based on Greek mythology. Seldom encountered outside France, tragédie lyrique required more musical and scenic resources than opéra comique. Nicholas’s projects included productions of Gluck’s Alceste, Armide and Iphigénie en Tauride, and of French operas by Grétry, Piccinni, Sacchini and Salieri. Not all these operas reached the stage. Even with his great wealth, Nicholas could not realise all his operatic ambitions.Footnote 4

During his visit to Paris, Nicholas had played chamber music with (and probably taken lessons from) a cellist in the orchestra of the Opéra and the Concert Spirituel whom we know only by his last name, Hivart (also spelled Hyvart). In 1784, as Nicholas’s operatic interests grew, he turned to Hivart for help. The French cellist became his agent and artistic advisor, commissioning designs for scenery and costumes, manuscript copies of scores and sets of parts, and theatrical models; and buying printed scores, librettos and a vast array of other musical and theatrical material. He shipped these to Russia, usually twice a year, in trunks – first to Rouen or Le Havre, where they were transferred to ocean-going ships for the voyage to St Petersburg. Hivart also advised Nicholas on musical and theatrical matters, most voluminously on the staging of opera – a subject on which the count was endlessly curious.

Hivart was perfectly placed to gain intimate knowledge of contemporary French opera. In direct contact with such composers as Grétry, Sacchini and Piccinni, and the stage machinist and ballet master of the Opéra, he watched, from his place in the orchestra, their work take shape on stage. This gives his letters significant value for historians of opera in eighteenth-century Paris, especially tragédie lyrique.Footnote 5

Hivart’s shipment of spring 1785, recorded in an inventory dated 29 May 1785, demonstrates the variety of material that he sent to Nicholas.Footnote 6 The ‘two large crates’ that went to Russia on 3 June 1785 contained full scores of both tragédies lyriques and opéras comiques, some printed (including Les Danaïdes) and some in manuscript. Some of the scores were accompanied by sets of manuscript parts, both instrumental and vocal. The performing materials for Les Danaïdes consisted (in addition to the printed score) of 965 pages of manuscript costing 289 livres.

Hivart used his status as an insider to obtain manuscripts of music not yet widely disseminated. A later shipment, for example, included an ariette from Grétry’s Richard Cœur-de-Lion (first performed in 1784, but not published in full score until 1786). Several months before the opera was published, Hivart referred to this particular manuscript:

You will find enclosed the score of a charming ariette that is causing excitement all over Paris. It is from Richard Cœur de Lion, opéra comique by Grétry, of which the music will not be engraved until next winter. Grétry would be furious if he knew someone else in Paris other than he had this air with the accompaniment.Footnote 7

Hivart also sent instrumental music to Nicholas; the shipment of spring 1785 included symphonies, symphonies concertantes, concertos, wind ensembles and string quartets, trios and duets. Although he did not name the composers of instrumental music in this shipment, from his other inventories we know he favoured the symphonies and string quartets of Joseph Haydn.Footnote 8

Also in spring 1785, Hivart sent costume designs, librettos, plays, theatrical almanacs and models to be used in making backstage devices and props. These devices included two for the production of fire on stage. The soufflet des éclairs was a set of bellows that produced a cloud of highly flammable spores of a primitive plant, lycopodium (also known as club moss, because of the clublike shape of the organ that produces the spores). A flame fed by alcohol ignited the cloud of spores, creating a fireball.Footnote 9 Torches held by furies in the underworld (of which Hivart also supplied Nicholas with a model) worked on the same principle and used the same flammable materials. The crates from France contained not only models of these pyrotechnic devices but also two pounds of lycopodium powder in an iron box.

By far the most expensive item in the shipment of spring 1785 (at 1,200 livres, it cost exactly fifty times as much as the printed full score of Les Danaïdes) was a ‘model of the flooded stage, outfitted with the most complicated theatrical machines’.Footnote 10 Nicholas was evidently fascinated with the challenge of flooding the stage with water. With this wooden model Hivart showed him how it could be done.

Not listed in the inventory (probably because Hivart intended it as a gift) is a manuscript essay on stagecraft written by Hivart himself. He explained in an accompanying letter that having failed to find any books on the subject, he wrote one himself:

My Lord, in my disappointment at not being able to find anything, in all my research, about theatrical machines, and feeling how important it is for you to have all the details necessary to present grand opera, I have taken care to study more closely, and with great attention, all the theatrical machines that I have seen every day for twenty years, in order to penetrate the secrets of this art, on which I have written a little work consisting of twenty articles. If this little essay can be of some use to you, I will be overjoyed, for the only reason I undertook it was the desire to please you.Footnote 11

Nicholas was pleased indeed: ‘In regard to the book on theatrical machines that you have written, it is the most wonderful book in the world! It is very useful to me.’Footnote 12

Hivart referred occasionally to this manuscript in his subsequent letters, sometimes by the title ‘Observations théâtrales’. The manuscript is not preserved together with Hivart’s letters, although it might well survive elsewhere among Nicholas’s very extensive papers in the Russian State Historical Archive.

Another service that Hivart provided was to update scores and librettos, so that they represented operas as they were currently being performed in Paris. New operas, in Paris as elsewhere in Europe, were subject to changes during rehearsals and the first run of performances, and a score could quickly fall out of date. Thus Nicholas was probably happy to pay Hivart 190 livres for changes made in the printed scores of Sacchini’s Chimène and Grétry’s Panurge so that they corresponded to the scores being used at the Opéra.Footnote 13

Hivart also supplied Nicholas with opinions – his own and those of the Parisian public – as in the case of Grétry’s ariette. Of Gluck’s Echo et Narcisse, he wrote: ‘the final chorus of this opera, “Dieu de Paphos”, is a masterpiece. This opera is easy to perform.’Footnote 14 While Echo et Narcisse as a whole was quickly forgotten in Paris – it was certainly Gluck’s least successful Parisian opera – the chorus that Hivart singled out did indeed become something of a classic, its status confirmed by Berlioz’s use of it as the final chorus in his revision of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice.

Hivart warned Nicholas of the occasional flop: ‘As for Piccini’s Adel [Piccinni’s Adèle de Ponthieu, Paris, 1781], the music seemed so bad that this opera had only two or three performances.’Footnote 15 Salieri’s Les Horaces (Paris, 1786), he wrote, ‘is full of beautiful music, but unfortunately the libretto is so bad that it had no success. Because it has not been printed, I cannot obtain a single piece for My Lord.’Footnote 16

Hivart’s reports on the staging of Les Danaïdes

Hivart strongly recommended the opera with which Salieri had made his Parisian debut in April 1784. ‘La musique des Danaïdes est superbe’, he wrote in May 1785, shortly before sending the shipment that included the recently published full score and a set of manuscript parts.Footnote 17 He was not alone in this opinion. The Mercure de France published a long and generally positive review of the music.Footnote 18 The opera’s staging also won applause, according to the Journal de Paris: ‘Few works present such a rich and imposing mise-en-scène. The large variety of characters, the number of scene changes and their picturesque quality, the beautiful working of the stage machinery, the brilliant costumes, and the choice of incidents of every kind contributed to the success of the first performance.’Footnote 19 In the repertory of the Opéra until the 1820s, Les Danaïdes was performed 127 times. One of those performances, in 1821, helped persuade the young Berlioz to give up medical studies and become a composer.Footnote 20

Hivart’s enthusiastic assessment of Les Danaïdes encouraged Nicholas to take a special interest in it, and made him curious about how it was performed in Paris. He asked repeatedly for advice on how to stage it, while acknowledging Hivart’s opinion that it was inappropriate for a small stage of the kind that Nicholas had at his disposal at Kuskovo: ‘What you say about Les Danaïdes is quite right: there are a lot of people on stage, but it can be arranged. I need precise details about the scenery, and, having received them, I will do everything possible to present the opera in our theatre. The music is so beautiful that I’ve fallen completely in love with it.’Footnote 21 Hivart’s reports on the first production of Les Danaïdes, the most extensive and detailed in his letters, contain much information about the production available nowhere else.

Salieri’s opera is based on a particularly gruesome Greek myth: the subject of a trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus of which only one – The Suppliants – survives. The Danaids of the title are the fifty daughters of King Danaus. To seal a reconciliation with the family of Egyptus, Danaus’s archenemy, the Danaids are to be married to the fifty sons of Egyptus, who arrive by ship to celebrate the wedding. Hypermnestra, one of the Danaids, loves Lynceus, one of the sons of Egyptus. Danaus reveals to his daughters that the reconciliation is a trick; he orders them to kill their husbands on their wedding night. All the daughters except Hypermnestra agree to do so. After much hesitation she tells Lynceus about the plot, but too late to save his brothers. Lynceus attacks the palace of Danaus, slaughtering the king and his daughters, but saving Hypermnestra. The opera’s final scene shows Danaus in the underworld, chained to a rock, his entrails pecked at by a vulture, while demons torment his daughters.

The dialogue between Nicholas and Hivart on Les Danaïdes began with a request by Nicholas for information about the production, dated 22 December 1785. Going through the opera act by act, he asked for details about costumes, sets and props. Especially interested in weapons, he asked whether Danaus is killed with a dagger or a sword, and ordered replicas of the daggers used by the Danaids to kill their husbands. He showed special interest in the violent final act, where, among other queries, he asked for advice on how to depict the vulture:

What is necessary for a production of Les Danaïdes: drawings and models

  1. 1 First set design: sea, temple, preparations for the oath of peace, ships. Should the characters be dressed as they normally would be on a ship?

  2. 2 Drawings of costumes for Lynceus and his brothers, Danaus, the Danaids, the people and the priests.

  3. 3 Set design for the second act. The stage represents an underground palace dedicated to Nemesis, with a statue and altar.

  4. 4 Garden. Third act, dedicated to Bacchus and Hymen. The garden must be ancient. An evening wedding feast, clothing of slaves, colourful garlands.

  5. 5 In the fourth act – emergence of the violent Danaids. Pictures of their clothes, thyrsis, daggers. It would be better to send a couple of these daggers – those that are used in your theatre. Pelagus kills Danaus. With a sword or a dagger?

  6. 6 In the fifth act, the castle, breeched and devoured by flames, falls and disappears. The scene changes and represents the underworld. The theatre is filled with waves of blood. At the edge or in the middle of the scene, Danaus appears, chained to a rock, his bloody entrails pecked by a vulture. It is difficult to picture the vulture. The Danaids chained in groups are tormented by furies and serpents. In this scene occurs the flooding of the theatre, a device which I understand; but still, in order to have everything clear, I would like to receive drawings, since there are some ambiguous details. I would be happy if you would provide them for me.Footnote 22

Waiting impatiently, Nicholas wrote to Hivart again on 19 May 1786:

In regard to Les Danaïdes, think about my request and do not leave out a single detail. I desperately need accurate drawings of the scenery, especially of acts 3 and 5. In the last scene of act 5, Danaus is outstretched on a rock, tormented by a vulture. Is this the same actor who plays the role elsewhere, or another dressed like him? The same question applies with respect to the daughters of Danaus.

All these details are absolutely necessary to me. I also need to know about costumes for the dancers, as well as the nature and roles of the ballet.Footnote 23

Nicholas’s follow-up letter and Hivart’s response to his previous query crossed in the mail. In a long letter dated 22 May 1786 and a series of enclosures, Hivart answered Nicholas’s earlier questions, referring often to a shipment sent later that year and to an annotated libretto:

In the margins of the libretto of Les Danaïdes I have had the entire course of the drama recorded: the exits and entrances of every actor on the stage, and details of the groups in different parts of the drama. My Lord, with your intelligence, following these details and those pertaining to the ballets, you will certainly be able to produce this sublime tragedy.Footnote 24

Among the more expensive items that Hivart sent were five stage designs, costing 50 livres each. As he explained in an accompanying letter:

All the set designs of Les Danaïdes that I have the honour to send you, done exactly as in the production at the Opéra, are consistent with the space of your small stage, which is the most important thing. They are made on a scale of one half inch to one foot in your theatre, which greatly facilitates their realisation by both the painter and the stage machinist of your theatre. The point of view in these scenic designs is that of the principal loge.Footnote 25

Also expensive (at 12 livres each) were ten costume designs, accompanied by notes that contain a few glimpses at how the opera looked in Paris:

No. 1. Danaus, king of Argos. It is an Egyptian costume. Danaus’s officers and his guards or soldiers must be in the costumes of Greeks warriors. These soldiers hold spears. See No. 6 for the costumes of the soldiers.

No. 2. Son of Egyptus. All the choristers and the dancers have the same costume.

No. 3. Danaid. All the choristers and the dancers are dressed the same; this makes a splendid sight when the curtain rises.

No. 4. Danaid. Recostumed in a cloak of striped satin, armed with bloody daggers, for Act 5.

No. 5. Slave who serves during the Danaids’ celebration.

No. 6. Phyrgian warrier, or Greek soldier. This is how Danaus’s soldiers are to be dressed.

No. 7. Sailor. Sailors are seen on the ships of the sons of Egyptus. This costumes can serve in almost any opera that uses sailors, both for the choristers and the dancers.

No. 8. High Priest. This is the costume of the priests who light the sacred fire in Act 1 of Les Danaïdes, except that they have laurel wreaths on their heads, instead of the caps worn by priests of Apollo or Diana.

No. 9. Phyrgian.

No. 10. Phrygian.

These last two, Nos. 9 and 10, could be the costumes of the people who should be seen on the hills on the sides of the stage in Act 1; but in a smaller theatre it is better to leave them out.

With regard to the sailors one sees on the ships of the sons of Egyptus, in order to preserve the illusion it is necessary that they are only little boys dressed as sailors. Unfortunately, this is not observed in our theatre.Footnote 26

In this final comment, Hivart may be alluding to the practice of using children for scenographic effects ‘within the scene’, to sustain the illusion of distance created by perspective scenery and the raked stage; in that case, the ships would presumably have been towards the rear of the stage.Footnote 27

In another letter, Hivart offered more details about the costumes, as well as the lighting and special effects, such as the rain of fire in Act V. Especially vivid are Hivart’s remarks on Act II, set in the Temple of Nemesis, where Danaus instructs his daughters to kill their future husbands. Hivart’s remarks corroborate Bennet’s report, quoted at the beginning of this article: ‘We had in the dark scenes not above one light.’

  1. 1 The underground temple of Nemesis in the second act of Les Danaïdes should be very dark, and may be illuminated, so to speak, by only one dismal lamp, hanging in the middle of the scene. The veil that covers the daggers lying on the altar of Nemesis should be the colour of blood.

  2. 2 The children with the torches of Hymen who appear in the final number of the ballet in act 3 must be dressed in long gowns of white muslin or cambric and girdled with blue ribbons. Their heads are decorated with floral wreaths. There should be one child for each pair of spouses, and they do not dance; they just follow the married couple.

  3. 3 The daggers with which the Danaids are armed in act 5 must have blades covered with blood. I ordered two daggers: one wooden and the other copper, with the blade attached to a spring, like those used on the stage.

  4. 4 At the beginning of act 5, on the queen’s side of the stage [stage left], there should be a chair and table with candles. The stage is dark. All these items must be removed before the denouement.

  5. 5 The rain of fire with which the opera ends can be seen only at the back of the stage. It is sufficient that it seems to fall on the Danaids. The curtain should be lowered before the rain is completely finished.

  6. 6 Costumes of the dancers in Les Danaïdes are the same as those of the singers. This is the only opera in which the dancers do not differ in their costumes from the other characters. The reason for this, as you know very well, is that the fifty sons of Egyptus are all brothers, just as the Danaids are all sisters. This uniformity of costumes makes a splendid sight when the curtain rises.Footnote 28

Elsewhere, Hivart responded more informatively to Nicholas’s curiosity about weapons, describing the colours of the daggers and specifying that the only dagger actually used in front of the audience must be equipped with a spring, so that the blade slides back into the handle when Danaus is stabbed to death in Act V.Footnote 29

In June 1786, Hivart answered Nicholas’s question about the role of dance in Les Danaïdes by quoting from a conversation he had had with the ballet master of the Opéra (presumably Maximilien Gardel, who occupied that position from 1781 to 1787). The first run of Les Danaïdes was evidently over by then; for Hivart to be able to describe the ballets in detail, he needed to wait until performances of Salieri’s opera started again so that he could actually study the dancing:

The ballet master of the Opéra, whom I consulted on the programme of the ballet of Les Danaïdes, told me that he had never made a programme for the ballet, and that no one ever put into writing the subject of a ballet, since one cannot write anything up there [on stage?]. Here is what I do, he told me: I study the libretto carefully, and only after being immersed in the subject matter, and in accordance with the dancers that I have, do I compose my ballet.

Since there is no need, in our case, to compose a ballet, but only to copy one that has already been made, here is what I propose as a way of obtaining the kind of programme that you desire. I will send you a manuscript copy of an instrumental part of the ballet of Les Danaïdes that I have had annotated so as to indicate the entries of each dancer – whether individual dancers or pas de deux, de quatre, or even the parts danced by the corps de ballet. Also to be indicated is the number of measures that each must dance, both individually and as a group.

Following this plan, which is a real programme, your ballet master will be able to organise his ballet; he will be responsible for shortening whatever he feels is too long, lacking the resources that we have here in Paris necessary to produce different genres of dance for men and women – which contributes much to variety in ballet and on which much of its merit depends.

My Lord, I will not be able to send you this programme, which I have only just begun, until we give this work here, since it cannot be finished except during the performance of Les Danaïdes. You will therefore wish to wait, My Lord, until that moment, which may not be until next winter, if you do not want to give the opera without this programme.Footnote 30

Hivart fulfilled his promise more quickly than he anticipated. Just three months later, in August 1786, he wrote that Salieri’s return to Paris to present two new operas, Les Horaces and Tarare, had encouraged the Opéra to bring Les Danaïdes back to the stage – for performances that Hivart studied carefully:

Salieri being here, we wished to present his Danaïdes to him, and this favourable circumstance gave me the opportunity to finish the programme of ballets for this divine opera, which I have the honour to send you by this post. By this means you will see the whole course of the ballet. The single name of a man or a woman next to the music for a dance indicates a pas seul, while the pas de deux, de quatre etc. are indicated by several names. This ballet score can also serve for the rehearsals for the ballets, and will be of great use to your ballet master.Footnote 31

Staging the dénouement

Hivart’s most detailed remarks have to do with the final scenes: the death of Danaus, the destruction of his palace, and the underworld scene. He described the movements and gestures of the singers and dancers, and explained how the palace is destroyed in full view of the audience, how the scene changes from palace to underworld and how the fire in the underworld is produced.

The description of the death of Danaus gives us a rare glimpse of the gestures and physical interaction of the characters. It continues with an equally rare example of operatic criticism on Hivart’s part – a comparison between the death of Danaus and the death of Thoas near the end of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride:

When Danaus, in act 5, advances to kill his daughter Hypermnestre, Pelagus, outraged by the king’s cruelty, suddenly stops him and plunges his dagger into his chest. Danaus, dying, falls into the arms of the soldiers around him, who immediately carry his body from the stage.

The same thing happens in the dénouement of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Pilade, in act 4, arrives with his soldiers in the temple of Diana at the same moment as Thoas is about to stab Oreste and the priestess to death. Pilade attacks the king and kills him with a dagger. While Thoas is carried out of the temple, Pilade arms Orestes with a sabre to help him pursue the soldiers of Thoas who want to defend their king. The battle ends and Oreste and Pilade reappear on the stage with their victorious soldiers, and so ends the dénouement.

As the passage continues, Hivart returns to the subject of daggers:

The dagger that one uses in such a situation must have a spring in the handle so that when one strikes with this dagger the blade retracts into the handle by means of this spring, which produces a fine illusion for the audience, given that these bloody scenes almost always take place at the edge of the stage, next to the orchestra.Footnote 32

Danaus’s death is followed by a few moments of celebration by Lynceus and his soldiers – but that celebration is interrupted by an earthquake, lightning and thunder, as Danaus’s palace falls into ruin. A change of scene reveals the underworld.

The destruction of the palace and the scene change, for which Salieri provided such thrilling music, was explained by Hivart in several separate statements, which make clear that the scene depicting the palace made use of two completely different kinds of scenery. The back wall consisted of a three-dimensional structure – a set piece, or ferme – made up of individual blocks that fell apart at the moment of destruction. The side walls, in contrast, were represented on a series of wing flats (coulisses) mounted on wheeled chariots (chassis) below the stage, pulled by ropes.

Hivart had a model of the set piece made for Nicholas, and sent this explanation with it:

The model of the set piece for Act 5 of Les Danaïdes represents the back of a hall. All the stones of the structure to be demolished are numbered and marked with a D to designate the right side and a G to designate the left side. You will observe that only three main stones form the frame of the door in this model, which are made of wicker. These must suffice to give an idea of how all the stones are made in the full-size version of the set piece. The other stones in the model are made of wood, just as in the model of the fortress in Richard, except that they are bigger in this second model.

The scale for this model is two inches to the foot, according to the plan of My Lord’s theatre. This scale must be kept together with the model.Footnote 33

With Richard, Hivart referred to Grétry’s Richard Cœur de Lion, which, like Les Danaïdes, impressed its audience with the spectacular destruction of a building.

Hivart explained how the back wall of Danaus’s palace was actually to be demolished:

In order for the set piece in Act 5 of Les Danaïdes to fall into ruins at the moment the lightning strikes it, My Lord will see very well that one need only take care to tie ropes behind the three or four main stones that are most important for the demolition. Then one person placed behind the set piece, in the wings, can use the ropes to topple the entire building at the first clap of thunder. If the entire building does not fall at once, another stagehand, in the wings on the other side of the set piece, can finish the destruction, knocking down the stones by pushing them from behind with a long pole.Footnote 34

These instructions bring to mind an aspect of eighteenth-century stagecraft that we rarely think about today. These hollow blocks of wickerwork, falling to the wooden floor of the stage, must have made a thunderous noise.

The system of moveable wings, allowing for the almost instantaneous changing of scenery, was introduced in Italy in the early seventeenth century; it remained in use, with only minor changes, through the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth.Footnote 35 In the Act V of Les Danaïdes, the wings served a double purpose. In addition to representing the walls of the palace, they hid stagehands from the audience’s view: not only those who caused the back wall to come tumbling down, but also those closer to the front of the stage who held poles, at the end of which was burning tow (étoupe, meaning course fibre of linen or hemp). Hivart explained this in a passage in which he brought all the scenic elements together:

As far as the destruction of the palace of the Danaids in Act 5 is concerned, nothing is easier than to achieve this effect, and here is how. It is enough that only the back of the stage, which faces the audience and which is known as the ferme, because ordinarily it consists of two large chariots (as with those of the temple door that you have in your model of the flooded stage) – it is enough, I say, that this set piece at the back of the stage consist of individual parts that allow it, at the sound of the whistle, to fall apart and turn into ruins. The two side walls of the palace, representing columns, do not need to fall into ruins like the back. Flames must be depicted from the wings as soon as lightning hits the palace two or three times. This kind of burning from behind the wings is produced by tow attached to the end of poles. The man who sets fire to this tow and holds the pole is hidden behind the wings so that the audience can see nothing but the burning tow. At that moment the wings are pulled back on their chassis, and replaced by those depicting the underworld. At the same time the backdrop collapses at the sound of the whistle (see the article about the demolition of a palace, p. 14)Footnote 36 and the flames appear behind the ruins, which can be produced by means of the bellows that produce lightning. The moment when the Danaids and furies occupy the front of the stage should be used to clear the back of the stage of all the remaining debris from the destruction of the palace.Footnote 37

With the phrase ‘bellows that produce lightning’, Hivart referred to the lycopodium-burning device of which he had supplied Nicholas with a model in the shipment of spring 1785. The use of real fire, fuelled by tow as well as lycopodium, in the Opéra’s realisation of Salieri’s finale makes it clear why Hivart had thought of sending Nicholas a pump that could shoot water to a height of fifty feet.

The fiery destruction of Danaus’s palace left the stage free for the underworld scene, which Hivart described vividly. The passage not only gives us details about the staging that are preserved nowhere else, but also serves as a warning that not every detail mentioned in the libretto’s stage directions could be successfully realised on stage:

Chained to a cliff in the underworld is not Danaus but a man dressed like him. He is accompanied by two or three demons who relentlessly torment him, with furies’ torches that they must shake ceaselessly, while a thunderbolt strikes him repeatedly by means of the conducting wire. (See the article ‘conductor’ in the ‘Observations théâtrales’, p. 9.) At the second representation of this work the vulture was omitted, not without reason: the man who played this role could not persuasively portray the beast.

The audience’s attention shifts from Danaus to his daughters and the furies who pursue them. Hivart described their actions as a ballet in which gestures became as important as music and scenery:

In this ballet the dancers who torment the Danaids are dressed as demons or furies, but without torches. Each of them chases one of the Danaids, whom they do not leave for a moment. Sometimes they grab her by the arm and forcefully pull her toward them, then they throw her on her knees, then they make her do it again, always pursuing her, as one sees in depictions of harpies. The Danaids or the dancers no longer have weapons; they must paint with their faces and their gestures the most terrifying despair. All this sublime horror ends with the rain of fire. During this rain, the Danaids appear completely overwhelmed by their agony. They must be arranged in groups in various poses, with their furies: some completely prostrate, others on their knees, others stretch their hands out to heaven. Together, all of that must produce the most terrifying picture at the moment the curtain falls.Footnote 38

Advice on directing the choruses and organising the rehearsals

As if worried that Nicholas and his music and stage directors might not be up to the task of putting together a production as complex as that of Les Danaïdes, Hivart sent advice on practical matters of rehearsal and conducting. He started by emphasising the usefulness of the manuscript score of the choral parts alone that he sent Nicholas:

I have ordered a copy of the score of the choruses used by the music directors who must stay on stage, behind the scenes, to direct these choruses. These music directors must constantly observe the conductor who is directing the opera from the orchestra. This score will be very useful to you for the performance of the choruses in Les Danaïdes. Our music directors here would not be able to do anything without this score.Footnote 39

In his next letter Hivart explained in more detail how the chorus’s performance was to be coordinated with that of the orchestra:

Nothing is more difficult in an opera than to keep the choruses and orchestra perfectly together. In the interests of accuracy and precision, I have the honour of recommending the use, as soon as you have it, of the choral score of Les Danaïdes, to which I referred in my last letter of September 18. It is absolutely indispensable, for a good execution of the choruses, to have two music directors behind the scenes, each with a similar score, who must constantly observe the conductor in the orchestra, in order to indicate to the singers in the chorus the movement of the conductor’s baton. The music directors behind the scenes, in contrast, indicate the beat to the choruses audibly, by hitting the floor of the stage with a cane, or with their foot.Footnote 40

Later in the same letter, Hivart stepped back from the details of Les Danaïdes to advise Nicholas on the logistics involved in bringing any tragédie lyrique to the stage:

The ballet master supervises small rehearsals of all his dancers with only two rehearsal violins. During that time, the music directors on both sides of the stage rehearse the choruses, first without any instruments, then with two violins and bass only. After that come the solo parts. When all that begins to go well, the whole orchestra is brought in. The full rehearsals begin with the dance on the stage and with everyone present. Ordinarily it is only during the last three full rehearsals that one must see the acting, the movement of groups, and the changing of scenery. During these rehearsals only the soldiers are dressed as they must be during the opera. That, My Lord, is why all this is called an opera. Footnote 41

Nicholas never did stage Les Danaïdes in Russia, but that does not lessen the value of Hivart’s advice on how the opera should be performed. As a member of the orchestra of the Opéra, he wrote from a perspective quite different from that of the journalists and opera-lovers whose voices dominate the printed discussions of tragédie lyrique. He thus gives us useful insights into a genre that Voltaire had memorably described in Le Mondain (1736):

Il faut se rendre à ce palais magique, You must go to this magic palace
Où les beaux vers, la danse, la musique, where beautiful poetry, dance, music,
L’art de tromper les yeux par les couleurs the art of deceiving the eyes with colours
L’art plus heureux de séduire les cœurs, and the even happier art of seducing the emotions,
De cent plaisirs font un plaisir unique. transform a hundred pleasures into a single pleasure.

Hivart helps us understand how the hundred pleasures of tragédie lyrique were assembled, backstage, during rehearsals, into the unified spectacle with which the magic palace of the Opéra enchanted its audience.

Footnotes

Having read earlier versions of this article at meetings of the International Musicological Society (Rome, July 2012), the musicology colloquium of the University of Michigan (March 2013), the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (Cleveland, April 2013) and the American Musicological Society (Pittsburgh, November 2013), I thank those who attended for their questions and comment. I am also grateful to Daniel Heartz, Beverly Wilcox and Guy Marchand, who read earlier drafts of this article, for their comments, and to Suzanne Aspden and an anonymous scholar who read the manuscript for Cambridge Opera Journal for their insightful suggestions.

References

1 William Bennet’s travel diary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Misc. f. 54), 14 October 1785, quoted in Black, Jeremy, The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1992), 255–256Google Scholar.

2 The rich literature on the staging of opera in eighteenth-century Paris includes Thomas Ault, C., ‘Design, Operation, and Organization of Stage Machinery at the Paris Opera, 1770–1873’, Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan (1983)Google Scholar; Antonia Banducci, ‘Staging a tragédie en musique: A 1748 Promptbook of Campra’s Tancrède’, Early Music 21 (1993), 180–90; French Theatre in the Neo-classical Era, 1550–1789 (Theatre in Europe: A documentary history), ed. W.D. Howarth (Cambridge, 1997), 499–540; Betzwieser, Thomas, ‘Musical Setting and Scenic Movement: Chorus and chœur dansé in Eighteenth-century Parisian Opera’, Cambridge Opera Journal 12 (2000), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Banducci, Antonia, ‘Staging and Its Dramatic Effects in French Baroque Opera’, Eighteenth-Century Music 1 (2004), 5–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Charlton, David, Opera in the Age of Rousseau: Music, Confrontation, Realism (Cambridge, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Elizarova, N.A. (also transcribed Yelizarova), Teatry Sheremetevykh (Moscow, 1944)Google Scholar is a pioneering, thorough study of Nicholas’s theatrical activities. On Nicholas and Prascovia (and the best treatment in English of Nicholas’s operatic patronage), see Smith, Douglas, The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great’s Russia (New Haven, 2008)Google Scholar. On the theatre at Ostankino, see Vdovin, G.V., Lepsakaia, Lia, and Cherviakov, Aleksandr, Ostankino Teatr-dvoretz (Ostankino Palace Theatre) (Moscow, 1994)Google Scholar. For good recent discussions of serf opera, see Schuler, Catherine, ‘The Gender of Russian Serf Theatre and Performance’, in Women, Theatre and Performance: New Histories, New Historiographies, ed. Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner (Manchester, 2000), 216–229Google Scholar; and Naroditskaya, Inna, Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage (New York, 2012), 53–80Google Scholar.

4 On Nicholas’s operatic repertory, see Lepskaia, Lia, Repertuar krepostnogo teatra Sheremetevykh: katalog p’es (Moscow, 1996)Google Scholar.

5 The Sheremetev–Hivart correspondence appeared in Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3), where it was used primarily to shed light on Nicholas’s theatrical activities. Working from the Russian translation, Smith (see n. 3) made frequent and effective use of the letters in portraying Sheremetev as a man of the theatre. I thank Smith for giving me the archival citation I needed to consult Hivart’s original letters (in French) in the Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv (Russian State Historical Archive) in St Petersburg (Opis 1088, Fond 1, Delo 186, henceforth referred to as ‘Hivart letters’) and for other advice that greatly contributed to the success of my trip to St Petersburg in June 2012. I was unable to find the original French texts of Sheremetev’s letters to Hivart; in quoting from these I used the Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3).

Much of the material that Hivart sent to Russia survives, dispersed in the collections of several archives, libraries and museums. For example, the library of the Russian Institute for the Arts in St Petersburg possesses scores of Haydn’s Stabat Mater and of Monsigny’s La belle Arsène and Rose et Colas in which the names of Nicholas’s singers (including Prascovia) document his ownership. Nicholas’s score of Dalayrac’s Nina, containing manuscript instructions addressed to Prascovia, is also preserved in St Petersburg, but in the Division of the History of Russian Culture in the Hermitage, which also owns several stage designs from Nicholas’s collection (Smith, The Pearl, 69 and 289, and personal communication; and Galina Viktorovna Kopytova, ‘The Sheremetev Collection’, Fontes Artes Musicae 53 (2006), 159–64). A scholarly edition of the complete Sheremetev–Hivart correspondence in the original French, identifying, illustrating and recording the present location of the items mentioned in Hivart’s inventories, would be a project of great value, but it is far beyond the scope of this article.

6 ‘Mémoire pour Monsieur Le Comte de Chérémétoffe du 29 May 1785’, Hivart letters, fols. 10r–11v.

7 ‘Vous trouverez ci joint la partition d’une ariette charmante qui fait tourner la tête à tous Paris, elle est tirée de Richard Coeur de Lion, opéra comique de Grétry, la musique ne sera gravée que cet hiver. Grétry seroit furieux s’il sçavoit qu’il y ait à Paris, un autre que lui qui ait cet air avec les accompagnemens’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 9 September 1785, Hivart letters, fols. 20r–21v). On Richard and its revisions, see Charlton, David, Grétry and the Growth of Opéra-Comique (Cambridge, 1986), 226–250Google Scholar.

8 On Hivart’s shipments of music by Haydn, see Rice, John A., ‘The Farewell Symphony between Paris and Russia’, in Haydn (the online journal of the Haydn Society of North America), 3 (2013)Google Scholar, www.rit.edu/affiliate/haydn/farewell-symphony-between-paris-and-russia.

9 For further discussion of lycopodium on the eighteenth-century stage (and in particular at the Opéra) and an illustration of the soufflet des éclairs, see John A. Rice, ‘Operatic Pyrotechnics in the Eighteenth Century’, forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference ‘Revaluing Theatrical Heritage’ (Kortrijk, January 2013).

10 ‘Modele du théatre innondé orné des machines théatrales les plus compliquées’ (‘Mémoire pour Monsieur Le Comte de Chérémétoffe du 29 May 1785’, Hivart letters, fols. 10r–11v).

11 ‘Monsieur Le Comte, disesperé de n’avoir rien pu découvrir par toutes mes recherches, touchans les machines théatrales, et sentant combien il importe que vous ayez sur ce chapitre, tous les détails necessaires pour pouvoir jouer le grand opera, je me suis avisé d’observer de plus pres avec beaucoup d’attention, toutes les machines théatrales, que je vois journellement depuis vingt ans, pour connoître le secret de cet art, sur le quel je viens de composer un petit ouvrage, qui contient vingt articles differents. Si ce petit essai peut vous étre de quelque utilité, je serez au comble de la joy, car l’envie de vous plaire est le seul motif qui ait pu me le faire entreprendre’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 16 May 1785, Hivart letters, fols. 6r–7v).

12 Sheremetev to Hivart, 22 December 1785; this translation based on the Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3), 408–9.

13 ‘Mémoire de la commission de Monsieur Le Comte de Chérémétoff, expediée le 6 Septembre 1785’, Hivart letters, fols. 14r–15r.

14 ‘Le dernier choeur de cet opéra, Le Dieu de Paphos, est un chef d’oeuvre. Cet opéra est très facile a représenter’ (‘Mémoire de la commission de Monsieur Le Comte de Chérémétoff, expediée le 6 Septembre 1785’, Hivart letters, fols. 14r–15r).

15 ‘Quand a l’Adel de Piccini, la musique en a parut si mauvaise que cet opéra n’a eut que 2 ou 3 reprèsentations’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 16 May 1785, Hivart letters, fols. 6r–7v).

16 ‘Saliéry ne donnera son opéra de Tarare, qu’après Paques, celui des Horaces qui a été executé etoit rempli de superbe musique, mais malheureusement les paroles etoient si mauvaises qu’il n’a eut aucun succés: comme il n’est point gravé, je ne puis en procurer le moindre morceau à Monsieur Le Comte’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 10 February 1787, Hivart letters, fol. 54r–v; 57r).

17 Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 16 May 1785, Hivart letters, fols. 6r–7v.

18 Mercure de France, 22 May 1784; quoted in Angermüller, Rudolph, Antonio Salieri: Sein Leben und seine weltlichen Werke, 3 vols. (Munich, 1971–4), III, 265Google Scholar.

19 Journal de Paris, 27 April 1784; quoted in Angermüller (see n. 18), III, 249–51.

20 On Les Danaïdes, the first of three operas that Salieri presented at the Opéra between 1784 and 1787, see Rice, John A., Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera (Chicago, 1998), 307–329Google Scholar.

21 Sheremetev to Hivart, 22 December 1785, translated from the Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3), 408–9.

22 Sheremetev to Hivart, 22 December 1785; translated from the Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3), 408–9.

23 Sheremetev to Hivart, 19 May 1786, translated from the Russian translation in Elizarova (see n. 3), 413.

24 ‘J’ai fait ecrire en marge sur le poëme même des Danaïdes, toute la marche de la piece, sçavoir, les entrées et les sorties de chaques acteurs sur la scène, avec les détails qui concernent les tableaux qu’il y a dans les differentes situations de cette tragédie. Monsieur Le Comte, vous pourrés trés certainement avec l’intelligence que vous avés, d’après ces détails et ceux des ballets, faire exécuter cette sublime tragédie’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 22 May 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 26r–27v).

25 ‘Toutes les décorations des Danaïdes que j’ai l’honneur de vous envoyer, sont faites exactement d’après celle de l’opéra, ainsi que d’après le plan de votre petite sale, ce qui est le plus essentiel. Elles sont dans les proportions d’un demi pouce par pied pour votre théatre, ce qui en rendra l’exécution beaucoup plus facile au peintre et au machiniste de votre théatre. Le point de vue de ces décorations est pris à la loge principale’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 22 May 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 26r–27v).

26 ‘No. 1 Danaus roy d’Argos, c’est le costume egiptien. Les officiers de Danaus et ses gardes ou soldats doivent étre en habit de guerrier grec. Ces soldats ont des piques. Voyez le No. 6 pour les costumes de ces soldats.

No. 2 Egiptus fils, tous les choeurs et les danseurs ont le même habit.

No. 3 Danaïde, tous les choeurs et les danseurs ont le même habit, ce qui fait un superbe coup d’œil au levée de la toile.

No. 4 Danaïde, revétue d’une banderole ou manteau de satin tigré et armée d’un poignard ensanglanté, pour le 5me acte.

No. 5 Esclave servant au festin des Danaides.

No. 6 Guerrier phrigien, ou soldat grec. C’est ainsi que doivent étre habillés les soldats de Danaus.

No. 7 Matelôt. On apperçoit des matelôts dans les vaisseaux des Egiptus. Ce costûme peut aussi servir dans presque tous les opéras ou il y a des matelôts, tant pour habiller les choeurs que les danseurs.

No. 8 Grand Prêtre. C’est le costume des prêtres qui allument le feu sacré dans le 1er acte des Danaides, excepté qu’ils ont sur la tête des couronnes de laurier au lieu d’avoir des bonets, comme prêtres d’Apollon ou de Diane.

No. 9 Phrigien

No. 10 Phrigien

Ces deux numeros 9 et 10 seroient bien le costume des peoples que l’on devroit voir sur les colines qui bordent le théatre dans le 1er acte des Danaides, mais sur un petit theatre il vaut mieux les supprimer.

Quand aux matelôts qu’on apperçoit sur les vaisseaux des Egiptus, il faudroit avoir le soin, pour ménager l’illusion, que ce ne soit que des petits garcons habillés en matelôt; c’est qu’on observe pas assez, malheuresement, sur notre théatre’ (‘Description des trente figures numérôtées 1, 2, 3 &c avec les details de différens usages aux quels elles peuvent étre employées avec avantage’, Hivart letters, fols. 29r–30v).

27 Burden, Michael, ‘Casting Issues in the Original Production of Purcell’s Opera “The Fairy-Queen”’, Music and Letters 84 (2003), 596–607CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 606.

28 ‘1 Le temple souterrain de Némésis au second acte des Danaïdes, doit étre trés obscur et ne doit pour ainsi dire étre eclairé que par une lampe sepulcrale qui pend au milieu du théâtre: le voile qui couvre les poignards qui sont sur l’autel de Némésis, doit étre couleur de sang.

2 Les enfans avec les flambeaux d’Hyménée que l’on voit dans le dernier air de ballet du 3me acte, doivent étre vétus d’une grande robe de gase blanche ou de linon; avec une ceinture de ruban bleu, la tête orné seulement d’une couronne de fleurs; il y a un enfant pour chaque epoux et epouse et ces enfans ne dansent point, ils ne font que suivrent les epoux.

3 Les poignards dont les Danaïdes sont armées au 5me acte, doivent avoir alors le bout de la lame ensanglanté. J’ai fait faire deux poignards, un de bois et l’autre de cuivre à lame a ressort—comme ceux du théatre.

4 Au commencement du 5me acte, il doit y avoir sur le théatre du côté de la Reine, un fauteuil, une table à côté et une lumiere sur cette table; le théatre étant dans l’obscurité; tous ces objets doivent étre retirés avant le dénouement.

5 La pluie du feu qui termine l’opera, peut ne paroître que dans le fond du théâtre, pourvu seulement qu’elle ait l’air de tomber sur Danaus cela suffit. La toile doit étre baissée avant que la pluie ne soit totalement finie.

6 L’habit de la danse pour les Danaïdes est le même que celui des acteurs. C’est le seul opéra ou la danse ne soit pas habillée différement que les autres personnages, la raison est, comme vous le savez fort bien, parce que les 50 Egiptus étoient autant de frères, de même que les Danaïdes etoient de sœurs. C’est cette même uniformité d’habit qui fait un superbe coup d’œil au lever de la toile’ (‘Observations sur Les Danaïdes’, enclosed with Hivart to Sheremetev, 20 August 1786, Hivart’s letters, fols. 41r–42r).

29 ‘Les poignards que les Danaïdes prennent sur l’autel de Némésis sont tout uniment de bois, le manche est doré et la lame est argentée. Quand à celui de Danaus, c’est un vrai poignard dont le manche est orné de quelques pierreries de couleurs, il est semblable à ceux que portent les princes orientaux.

Il n’y a que celui dont se sert le capitaine des gardes au 5 acte contre Danaus, qui ait une lame à ressort, la quelle doit étre un peut plus courte que la manche. Ce poignard doit étre tout uni’ (‘Observations sur les Danaïdes’, enclosed with Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 20 August 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 39r–40v).

30 ‘Le maître des ballets de l’opera, que j’ai consulté sur le programe des ballets des Danaïdes, m’a dit que jamais il n’avoit fait aucun programe de ballet, et que personne ne couchoit jamais par ecrit le sujet d’aucun ballet, attendu qu’on ne peut rien ecrire la-dessus. Voici ce que je fais, m’a-t-il dit, je consulte bien attentivement le poëme, et ce n’est que d’après m’etre bien pénétré du sujet, e d’après les danseurs que j’ai, que je compose mon ballet.

Comme il n’est pas question ici de composer un ballet, mais seulement de copier ce qui est déja fait, voici le moyen que j’ai imaginé pour pouvoir vous procurer l’espece de programe que vous desirez. C’est en vous envoyant une partie copiée des airs de ballet des Danaides, sur laquelle j’ai fait faire des remarques à chaque air pour indiquer les entrées de chaques danseurs, soit danseurs seul, soit les pas de deux, de quatre, ou même toute la partie des danseurs figurants et figurantes. On y voit la quantitée de mesures que chacun doit danser soit en particulier soit en commun.

C’est d’après ce plan qui est un véritable programe, que votre maître de ballet pourra regler son ballet, il sera le maître de retrancher tout ce qui lui paroitra trop long, n’ayant pas les ressources en fait de different genre de danse en homme et en femme, tels que nous les avons à Paris, ce qui met beaucoup de varietés dans un ballet et qui en fait même tout le mérite.

Je ne pourrai, Monsieur Le Comte, vous envoyer ce programe qui n’est que commencé pour le present, que lorsqu’on donnera cette piece chez nous, attendu qu’on ne peut le finir que pendant l’execution meme de l’opera des Danaïdes. Vous voudrez donc bien, Monsieur Le Comte, attendre jusqu’à ce moment, qui ne sera peutetre que l’hiver prochaine, si vous ne voulez pas donner cet ouvrage sans ce programe’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 14 June 1786, Hivart’s letters, fols. 33r–35v).

31 ‘Saliery étant ici, on a voulu le regaler de ses Danaïdes, cette circonstance favourable m’a mis à même de pouvoir terminer le programe des ballets de cet opéra divin que j’ai l’honneur vous envoyer par cette poste, vous verés toute la marche du ballet par ce moyen, un seul nom d’homme ou de fame ecrit sur l’air de ballet indique un pas seul, les pas de deux, de quatre, par plusieurs noms &c. Cette partition de ballet peut servir aussi pour faire faire les répétitions des ballets, elle sera d’une grande utilité à votre maître de ballet’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 20 August 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 41r–42r).

32 ‘Lorsque Danaus, au 5eme acte, s’avance pour tuer sa fille Hipermnestre, Pélagus irrité contre ce roy cruel, l’arrête tout à coup et lui plonge un poignard dans le sein, Danaus tombe mourant dans les bras des soldats qui sont à ses côtés, on l’emporte aussitôt hors du théatre.

Il en est de même pour le dénoüement d’Iphigénie en Tauride de Glouck. Pilade, au 4eme acte, arrive avec toute sa troupe dans le temple de Diane, au moment même ou Thoas veut poignarder Oreste et la pretresse, Pilade fond sur le roy et le tue d’un coup de poignard, pendant qu’on emporte Thoas hors du temple, Pilade arme Oreste d’un sabre pour l’aider à poursuivre avec sa suite, les troupes de Thoas qui veulent déffendre leur roy, le combat finit, Oreste et Pilade reparoissent sur la scêne avec leurs soldats victorieux, c’est ce qui termine le denoüment.

Le poignard dont on se sert en pareil cas doit avoir un ressort dans le manche, ce qui fait que lors qu’on frappe avec ce poignard la lame rentre aussitôt dans le manche par le moyen de ce ressort, ce qui produit beaucoup d’illusion aux spectateurs attendu que ces scênes sanglantes se passent presque toujours sur le bord du théatre près de l’orchestre’ (Dissertation sur le dénoüement des Danaïdes, Hivart letters, fol. 25r–v).

33 ‘Le modele de la ferme du 5me acte des Danaïdes reprèsente le fond d’une gallerie. Toutes les pierres de cette démolition sont numerotées et marquées d’un D. pour désigner le côté droit, ou d’un G. pour le côté gauche. On observerà qu’il n’y a que les trois pierres principales formant le ceînture de la porte de ce modele, qui soient réelement executées en osier, devant suffir pour donner une véritable idée de celles qu’on emploi au théatre en pareil cas. Les autres pierres rapportées de cette démolition sont de bois peint, de même que celle du modele de la forteresse de Richard; excepté seulement qu’elles sont beaucoup plus grosses dans ce second modele.

L’echelle de proportion pour ce modele est à deux pouces pour pied d’après le plan du théatre actuel de Monsieur Le Comte. Cette echelle doit étre jointe au modele’ (‘Observations sur le modele de démolition de la forterasse du 3me acte du Richard III, et sur celui de la ferme du 5me des Danaïdes’, Hivart letters, fol. 133r-v).

34 ‘Pour que la ferme du cinquiême acte des Danaïdes puisse tomber en ruine au moment même ou elle est frappée par la foudre, Monsieur Le Comte verra très bien qu’il ne faut pour cette opération, qu’avoir le soin seulement, d’attacher par derriere, avec des cordes, trois ou quatres pierres principales de cette démolition, alors un seul homme placé derriere cette ferme dans la coulisse, peut par ce moyen, en tirant ces cordes, renverser tout l’edifice aussitôt le coup de tonnerre. Dans le cas ou toute la ferme ne seroit pas tombée entierement, alors, un autre machiniste qui doit etre placé aussi dans la coulisse de l’autre côté de cette ferme, peut achever de renverser toutes ces pierres rapportées, en les poussant par derriere avec une grande perche’ (‘Observation sur la ferme de démolition des Danaïdes’, enclosed with Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 27 September 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 47r–48v).

35 For a discussion of this technology (based on evidence from seventeenth-century Venice, but largely still applicable to eighteenth-century theatre), see Glixon, Beth L. and Glixon, Jonathan E., Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice (New York, 2006), 227–276CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an early nineteenth-century account of more or less the same system, as used at the Opéra, see Borgnis, J.A., Traité complet de mécanique appliquée aux arts: Des machines imitatives et des machines théâtrales (Paris, 1820), 274–294Google Scholar.

36 A reference to the manuscript ‘Observations théâtrales’ that Hivart wrote for Nicholas in 1785.

37 ‘Quand à ce qui regarde la démolition du palais des Danaïdes dans le cinqieme acte, rien n’est plus facile que de rendre cet effet, et le voici. Il suffit que le fond seul de ce palais qui fait face au publique et qu’on nomme ferme, parce qu’il est ordinairement composé de deux grands chassis, ainsi que ceux de la porte du temple que vous avez dans votre modele d’innondation. Il suffit, dis je, que ce fond soit composé de pieces de rapport, pour pouvoir tomber au coup de siflet et presenter une ruine. Les deux cotés du palais ou l’on voit des colomnes n’ont pas besoin de tomber en ruine comme le fond. On fait seulement voir des flammes par toutes les coulisses aussitôt que la foudre est tombée en deux ou trois endrois du palais: cette espece d’embrasement par les coulisses s’imite par le moyen des étoupes que l’on attache au haut d’une perche. L’homme qui met le feux à ces étoupes et qui tient cette perche est caché dans la coulisse pour ne faire appercevoir au déhors, que la flamme de ces étoupes. C’est dans ce moment que l’on retire les chassis des coulisses pour faire avancer à leur place ceux qui doivent représenter les enfers. C’est aussi pendant ce moment que le fond du théatre doit se démolir au coup de siflet (voyez l’article qui traite de la démolition d’un palais, page 14); et qu’on doit voir ensuite par derriere des flammes qui peuvent se faire avec le souflet des éclairs. On profite du moment ou les Danaïdes et les furies occupent le devant de la scene, pour dégager tout ce qui reste de debris dans le fond du théatre après la démolition du palais’ (‘Observations sur l’opéra des Danaïdes’, Hivart letters, fols. 31r–32r).

38 ‘Ce n’est point Danaus qui paroit enchainé sur le rocher dans les enfers, mais c’est un homme qu’on habille ainsi: il doit étre accompagné de deux ou 3 diables qui ne cessent de le tourmenter avec les flambeaux des furies qu’ils ont [illegible word] d’agiter sans cesse, pendant que la foudre paroit tomber sur lui à plusieurs reprises par le moyen du conducteur (voyer les observations théatrales p. 4 à l’article conducteur). On a supprimé le vautour, avec raison, à la seconde représentation de cette piece, parceque l’homme qui jouoit ce role n’avoit pas l’esprit de faire la bêtte. Dans ce dernier ballet, les danseurs qui tourmentent les Danaides, sont habillés en démons, ou furies, et n’ont point de flambeaux; il poursuivent chacuns une Danaide qu’ils ne quittent plus du tout, tantôt ils la tiennent par un bras en l’attirant vers eux avec violence, puis la renversent sur les genoux, il la referent ensuitte pour la faire faire devant eux en la poursuivant toujours, comme on nous represente les harpies. Les Danaïdes, ou danseurs n’ont plus aucunes armes, elles doivent peindre par leurs figures et leurs gestes le plus affreux désespoir. Toute cette sublime horreur se termine par une pluie de feux (voyer cet article aux observations p. 9). Pendant laquelle pluie, les Danaïdes paroissent étre exédées de leurs tourments, alors, elles doivent étre toutes groupées dans differentes attitudes avec leurs furies, les unes paroissent totalement renversées, d’autres ont les deux genoux en terre; enfin, d’autres ont les main levées vers le ciel, tout cela doit former le tableau le plus effrayant au moment ou l’on baisse la toile’ (‘Observations sur l’opéra des Danaïdes’, Hivart letters, fols. 31r–32r).

39 ‘J’ai fait copier une partition de chœurs qui sert aux maitres de musique qui doivent se tenir sur le théâtre dans les coulisses pour faire aller ces chœurs. Ces maitres de musique doivent observer san cesse le maitre de musique qui est à l’orchestre pour conduire l’opera. Cette partition vous serva trés utile pour la conduite de chœurs des Danaïdes. Nous maîtres de musique ici ne pourroient rien faire sans cette partition’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, Paris, 17 September 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 43r–44v).

40 ‘Comme il n’y a rien de plus difficile dans un opera, que de faire aller les choeurs bien ensemble avec l’orchestre, à cause de la justesse et de la precision, j’ay l’honneur de vous recommender, en consequence, de faire usage, aussitôt que vous l’aurez, de la partition de choeur des Danaïdes, dont il à été question dans ma derniere lettre en date du 18 septembre. Il est, dis-je, absoluement indispensable pour obtenir une bonne execution dans les choeurs, d’avoir de chaque côté du theatre dans les coulisses, deux maîtres de musique avec une semblable partition de choeur; lesquels doivent observer sans cesse la mesure du maître de musique de l’orchestre, pour indiquer aux chanteurs des chœur le mouvement du baton de mesure de ce maître de musique. Les maîtres de musique du théatre, au contraire, font entendre la mesure aux chœurs, en frappant avec une canne, ou bien avec le pied, sur le planche du théatre’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, 27 September 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 47r–48v).

41 ‘Le maître des ballets fait faire les petites répétitions particulieres a tous ces danseurs avec deux violons répétiteurs seulement. Pendant ce temps, les maîtres de musique du theatre font d’un autre côté, répéter les choeurs, d’abord sans aucun instrument, ensuite avec deux violons et une basse seulement. Après cela viennent les roles. Quand tout cela commence à aller, on y réunit tout l’orchestre. On commence les répétitions générales avec la danse réunis au théatre avec tous le monde, ce n’est ordinairement qu’aux trois dernieres répétitions générales, que l’on doit voir les actions, le mouvement des troupes, ainsi que les changements des décorations. Les soldats, seulement, sont habillés tels qu’ils doivent l’étre dans l’opera à ces répétitions. Voila, Monsieur Le Comte, pourquoi tout cela s’appelle un opera’ (Hivart to Sheremetev, 27 September 1786, Hivart letters, fols. 47r–48v).