Massenet, Jules

Massenet, Jules – Cigale, Divertissement Ballet en deux actes (scénario d’Henri Cain)

(b. Montand, 12 May 1842 — d. Paris, 13 August 1912)

Ballet

First Act p.1
Second Act p.125

Preface
Massenet is best remembered today as a composer of opera and dramatic music, composing over two dozen works for the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique in Paris, as well as various opera houses throughout Europe, including Vienna, Monte Carlo, and Covent Garden. However, he also was a prolific composer of mélodies, piano pieces, oratorios, and various larger instrumental works including incidental music, orchestral suites, overtures, and ballet music. It is into this last category that Cigale falls. According to the Massenet authority Jean-Christophe Branger, the composer wrote four oeuvres chorégraphique between 1891 and 1907. These are Le Carillon (1891) which he labeled a légende dansée et mimée; Les Rosati (1901), labeled a divertissement; Cigale (1902) which he called a divertissement-ballet; and perhaps his best-known ballet, Espada (1907).1 Despite contributing only four works considered ballets, Massenet operas are replete with ballet music since that was still de rigeur for French operatic works during his lifetime. As a matter of fact, ballet music from several of his operas are stand-alone suites often still performed by orchestras today. These include suites from his operas Thaïs, Hérodiade, Le Cid, and Cendrillon.

Cigale was composed in 1902, according to Branger, and received its premiere on February 4, 1904, as part of a matinée extraordinaire on behalf of the pension fund for the staff of the Opéra-Comique.2 According to research by the late Demar Irvine, the concert included Mozart’s brief opera Bastien et Bastienne, various arias and duets from works by Dubois, Gounod, Charpentier (a pupil of Massenet), an act from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, as well as the recitation of poetry, instrumental music, and strangely enough, “Mme. Magdeleine, in musical interpretations under hypnosis by Professor Magnin.”…

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