Adèle de Ponthieu 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 1 December 1772. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The libretto was written by Jean-Paul-André Razins de Saint-Marc, after a tragedy by Pierre-Antoine de La Place, staged at the Comédie-Française in 1757.Pitou, pp. 9-10. Cf. Adèle, comtesse de Ponthieu, Tragédie. Par M. de la Place. Représentée par les Comédiens Ordinaire du Roi, le 28 Avril 1757, & remise au Théâtre au mois de Novembre de la même année, Paris, Jorry, 1758 (copy at books.google).
The opera had little success in its first run and was only revived in 1775 in five acts, for 38 performances, before being withdrawn for good.Lajarte, p. 256. The three-act libretto, however, was later set by Niccolò Piccinni in 1781.
Roles CastVoice typePremiere1 December 1772Guillaume, Count of Ponthieubasse-taille (bass-baritone)Henri LarrivéeAdèle, the Count's daughtersopranoSophie ArnouldAlphonse, a foreign knightbass-baritoneNicolas GélinRaimond de Mayenne, a relative of the Count and a humble squirehaute-contreJoseph LegrosAlise, Adèle's confidantesopranoMlle ChâteauneufJuges du camp (judges of the camp)2 bass-baritones, haute-contre, taille (baritenor)Cassaignade, de la Suze, Cavalier, MéonUn berger (a shepherd)bass-baritoneDurandUne bergère (a shepherdess)sopranoMlle Beaumesnil (stage name of Henriette-Adélaïde de Villars)Une jongleuse (a female jongleur)sopranoMlle BeaumesnilChorus: The court of the Count, knights, squires, king of arms, heralds, officers of the joust, fiddlers, male and female jongleurs, shepherds, shepherdesses
References Notes
Sources Théodore Lajarte, Bibliothèque Musicale du Théatre de l'Opéra. Catalogue Historique, Chronologique, Anecdotique, Tome 1, Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, 1878 (copy at Internet Archive) Spire Pitou, The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers – Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815, Greenwood Press, Westport/London, 1985. Original 1772 libretto at Gallica, BNF Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse Dictionnaire des Opéras, p. 6