Which is the opera where everything ends with a triad, with a ménage à trois in mutual agreement? This is the surprising ending in Adolphe Adam’s Le Toréador. And the music too offers a breath of fresh air – brilliant and elegant orchestral writing with great powers of seduction.
The Luzerner Theater is staging a new production. The premiere in 1849 of Adolphe Adam’s Le Toréador ou l’Accord parfait (Le Toreador or The perfect triad) represented an important stage in his output. The librettist Thomas Sauvage was inspired by what appears at first glance to be the conventional model of the Commedia dell’Arte. The plot is set in Seville and the cast contains the following characters: an ageing “greybeard” (Don Belflor, a retired bullfighter and philanderer), his young wife (Coraline) and her lover (Tracolin). The work is novel, because it has a very modern ending: it transpires that nothing is better for the bond between a married couple, who in fact do not suit each other, than a young lover. The acknowledgement of such a ménage à trois which – entirely contrary to convention – was approved of by all involved, was truly astonishing in the middle of a century of prescribed morality. It should also be noted that in the Second Republic, libretti no longer had to be submitted to the censor – which explains the bold tone of the work. The subtitle gives a clear hint of what the piece is about: everyone knows that in music an “accord parfait”, or “perfect triad”, comprises exactly three notes!
But this is a remarkable work in another respect. Before her marriage Coraline had met Tracolin in Paris. The young woman was a singer at the Opéra-Comique; and the young man, a flautist, was consumed by love for her from the orchestra pit. And so it came about that particular melodies from the operatic repertoire (particularly from works by Grétry) serve as “distinguishing features” for the two: Coraline’s vocal part, rich in ornaments, is the counterpart to the role of Tracolin, who “plays” a virtuoso solo flute part.
In the opera, about 90 minutes in length, ten musical numbers alternate with spoken dialogues. Adam gives one or two arias to each role. In the first act there are two trios of great beauty, the second of which is undoubtedly the jewel of the entire piece: this is a set of variations on “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman”, in which virtuosity is combined with comedy. Each act closes with a through-composed, perfectly-structured finale. The vocal parts are accompanied by a brilliant, spirited orchestral texture, which unfolds most impressively in the overture, almost 400 bars in length. The work captivates through the elegance and lightness of its compositional style, the seductive power of the soprano part in particular, and the well-structured storyline, full of a real feeling for the comic.
The Bärenreiter edition is the first edition of this opera based on a critical evaluation of the sources. In it, the spoken dialogue texts are integrated into the musical numbers for the first time. The edition is based on the 1849 orchestral score, rather superficially edited, which has been compared with Adam’s manuscript autograph as well as contemporary orchestral material and the vocal score. In the two last-named sources, there are numerous annotations from performances of the work at the Opéra-Comique which took place up to the beginning of the 20th century.
Paul Prevost
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)