In July 1798, in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution, Luigi Cherubini’s first comic opera, L’hôtellerie portugaise, premiered at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. Curiously, the story is set in an inn located on the border between Portugal and Spain in the mid-17th century. The production was a failure. Nevertheless, it included some passages that immediately pleased the audience—most notably the orchestral overture that opens the work, which we still enjoy revisiting today.
**
Luigi Cherubini was born in Florence in 1760 and also studied in Bologna and Milan. Early in his career, he composed mainly sacred music. It was only when Napoleon Bonaparte attended a performance of one of his operas in Vienna, in 1805, that Cherubini gained international visibility. However, he had to wait until the emperor’s abdication to develop a successful career in Paris, notably as director of the city’s conservatory. Although highly respected in his time by figures such as Beethoven, it is the overtures to his operas that are most frequently performed in concert halls today.
The one-act opera L’hôtellerie portugaise had premiered a few years earlier, shortly after the French Revolution and at a time when peaceful coexistence and worldly entertainment were returning to Paris. It was Cherubini’s first foray into comic opera. The libretto offered no great surprises: an old man (Don Roselbo) is in love with a young woman (Gabriella), but ends up deceived by the cunning of the young woman and her fiancé (Don Carlos). What piques our curiosity is the choice to set the action in Portugal, where Gabriella came to meet Don Carlos. Even more striking is the sorrowful folk-like melodic theme heard at the very beginning of the overture, quickly followed by a more energetic section featuring successive expressive contrasts, as if foreshadowing the many dramatic twists that would unfold on stage.
Rui Campos Leitão