La reine de Saba
Music by Charles Gounod · libretto by Jules Barbier · premiered 1862 · at Salle Le Peletier
La reine de Saba (The Queen of Sheba) is a grand opera in four or five acts by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré inspired by Gérard de Nerval's La Reine de Saba, in Le voyage en Orient. It was premiered at the Salle Le Peletier by the Paris Opera on February 28, 1862. The magnificent first production was directed by Eugène Cormon, with costumes designed by Alfred Albert and Paul Lormier, and scenery by Édouard Desplechin (Act I), Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry (Acts II and IV, scene 2), Hugues Martin (Act III), and Joseph Nolau and Auguste Alfred Rubé (Act IV, scene 1).
Text from the Wikipedia article "La reine de Saba", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Charles-François Gounod (UK: GOO-noh, US: goo-NOH, French: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa ɡuno]; 17 June 1818 – 18 October 1893) was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been Faust (1859); his Roméo et Juliette (1867) also remains in the international repertoire. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his "Ave Maria" (an elaboration of a Bach piece) and "Funeral March of a Marionette". Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family, Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Charles Gounod", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Charles Gounod
- Cinq-Mars
- La nonne sanglante (1852)
- Faust (1859)
- La colombe (1860)