Antonio Salieri’s reputation seems destined to be tainted forever by the stories of his rivalry with Mozart and, thanks to Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, the part he supposedly played in his contemporary’s premature death (which was almost certainly none at all).
Meanwhile, his considerable achievements as a composer tend to be underrated, and though his operas – he wrote more than 40 – are reckoned to be uneven, and sometimes undermined by weak librettos, they are more than historical curiosities. Salieri was regarded highly enough as a composer to become the most influential musician in Vienna in the late 1780s, and, when he gave up composition and concentrated on teaching, to have Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt among his pupils.
Les Danaïdes, the latest work in Ediciones Singulares’s French opera series, was first performed in Paris in 1784, when Salieri took over a commission originally intended for Gluck. It’s the story of the 50 daughters of Danaus, who are ordered by their father to murder their husbands – his twin brother’s 50 sons – in revenge for the wrongs committed against him. The refusal of the eldest, Hypermnestra, to do so, is presented as a five-act tragédie lyrique, complete with grand set-piece choruses, ballets and a splendid final scene, when the danaïdes atone for their crimes in hell.
The premiere was a huge success, and Les Danaïdes remained in the repertory of the Paris Opera for almost 40 years; the young Berlioz saw it there, and it left him “excited and disturbed”. Now the music seems like a melting pot of 18th-century operatic traditions, combining Gluck’s French style with hints of a more Italianate approach that itself seems to blur distinctions between opera seria and opera buffa.
Certainly, it all coheres convincingly in this performance under Christophe Rousset, with imposing choral contributions from Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, and the usual fiercely involved playing from Les Talens Lyriques. The central roles are hugely demanding vocally, and Judith van Wanroij ensures that Hypermnestra’s agonies of loyalty are the pivots on which the drama turns. Immaculately presented, this is an operatic rarity that’s worth investigating.
