A history of opera could be written around the quest for a suitable libretto. Berlioz did not discover his abilities as a librettist until the early 1850s, as he supplied his own text for the piecemeal composition of L'Enfance du Christ. He then went on to write one of the most magnificent of all operatic libretti for Les Troyens. Meanwhile, in the early 1830s, he was ripe for opera. Among the subjects considered were Hamlet, Much Ado about Nothing, and Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, before he settled in the spring of 1834 upon an opéra comique spun out of the Memoirs of the Renaissance sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini. Having drafted a scenario, he turned to his friend, the poet Alfred de Vigny (1797 - 1863), for the words. But Vigny, busy with his play, Chatterton, referred Berlioz to their mutual friend, the playwright Léon de Wailly (1804 - 1863). Wailly, a minor writer, was nevertheless a competent literary man and an industrious translator of English literature. He promptly sought the help of another of Berlioz' friends, the satirical poet, Auguste Barbier (1805 - 1882), and the libretto was quickly completed by midsummer of 1834. Berlioz had already composed the "Chant des ciseleurs" (the Goldsmiths' Chorus) to a lyric by Vigny, but as the year wore on composition gave way to a full time career as a critic to support his family. Benvenuto Cellini was put aside for the organization of orchestral concerts, with Liszt as soloist, in April and May 1835. And the attempted assassination of King Louis-Philippe on July 28 brought Berlioz back to an old ambition to compose a monumental "Napoleonic" work, at which he labored into the fall. In these circumstances, on August 25, he found time to compose—or to transcribe as a fair copy into the album of one H. Bachimont—the Chansonette de M. Léon de Wailly, a mélodie for tenor or soprano, with piano accompaniment, of 45 bars. Melody and text for the two succeeding stanzas are also given. Wailly's poem, the idyll of an island in an eastern sea upon which he might embower his beloved, is set to an idiosyncratically Berliozian melody of nervous feints and arching charm which Berlioz would incorporate into Benvenuto Cellini, near the beginning of the first act, as Cellini and his workmen serenade Cellini's sweetheart, Teresa, from offstage in a mock De profundis.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.