Panurge (opera)
opera by Jules Massenet
Panurge is an opera (titled 'Haulte farce musicale') in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Georges Spitzmuller and Maurice Boukay, after Pantagruel by Rabelais. It was first performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris on 25 April 1913, nearly a year after Massenet's death, one of three operas by the composer to have premiered posthumously, the others being Cléopâtre (1914) and Amadis (1922).
Performance history
It is one of Massenet's least known operas, but was revived at the Massenet Festival in St. Etienne in 1994 under conductor Patrick Fournillier. Harding quotes a reaction of Alfred Bruneau who declared that the libretto was not suited to Massenet's temperament and demanded music not of a Massenet, but of a Chabrier.
Roles
Synopsis
Act 1
A crowd of townspeople have gathered outside the tavern of Alcofibras, the 'Hostellerie du Coq à l’Asne' in Les Halles, on Mardi Gras. Pantagruel and his squires order wine. Panurge has entered and Pantagruel beckons the hungry newcomer to join his party. Panurge addresses his host in Italian, German, and finally French. Panurge claims that he has lost his wife, Colombe, that very morning and can't decide whether to laugh or cry.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 12, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q3012722. VIAF identifies the subject as 217036079. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1914, 1922 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Panurge (opera)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.