Amadis de Gaule
Music by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde
Amadis de Gaule is an opera by the French composers Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Pierre Montan Berton, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris (the Paris Opera) on 26 November 1771. It takes the form of a tragédie en musique in five acts. The opera is a new setting of a libretto by Philippe Quinault, originally set by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1684, based on Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Amadis de Gaule (La Borde and Berton)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Jean-Benjamin François de la Borde (5 September 1734 – 22 July 1794) was a French composer, writer on music and fermier général (farm tax collector). Born into an aristocratic family, he studied violin under Antoine Dauvergne and composition under Jean-Philippe Rameau. From 1762 to 1774, he served at the court of Louis XV as premier valet de la chambre, losing his post on the death of the king. He wrote many operas, mostly comic, and a four-volume collection of songs for solo voice, Choix de chansons mises en musique illustrated by Jean-Michel Moreau. Many of the songs from the collection were later published individually through the efforts of the English folksong collector Lucy Etheldred…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Jean-Benjamin de La Borde", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde
- Ismène et Isménias (1763)
- Adèle de Ponthieu (1772)