LA VESTALE
Tragédie lyrique en 3 actes
Composer: Gaspare Spontini (1774–1851)
Libretto: Étienne de Jouy
First performance: Salle Montansier, Académie Impériale de Musique (Paris Opéra), 15 December 1807

SETTING : Rome, 269 BC

PLOT : The victorious Roman general Licinius intends to kidnap Julia, the priestess of Vesta whom he loves. Julia prays to Vesta to resist temptation, but yields to him in the temple of Vesta. The sacred flame dies out, and Licinius flees. The High Priest sentences Julia to death for licentiousness, but she refuses to name her lover. A stroke of lightning relights the sacred flame. The High Priest and Chief Vestal interpret this as an omen, and free Julia, who marries Licinius.
‘M. Spontini, je vous répète que vous obtiendrez un grand succès ; il sera mérité,’ declared Napoleon. ‘Votre opéra abonde en motifs nouveaux ; la déclamation est vraie et s'accorde avec le sentiment musical ; de beaux airs, des duos d'un effet sûr, un finale entraînant ; la marche du supplice me paraît admirable…’ [1]

Without the Emperor’s command and Josephine’s wish, Spontini’s masterpiece would never have been produced. The jury of the Opéra found its style eccentric, the harmony defective, the orchestration noisy, certain phrases completely unintelligible, while the vocal line rested on the accompaniment like a fistful of hair on a bowl of soup. Spontini had to endure the editing of two mediocre musicians, Persuis and Rey, before the opera could be staged, but the work was, as Napoleon predicted, a success. The Institut de France declared it the best lyrical work of the decade; it received nearly 100 consecutive performances, and 200 performances by 1830. Wagner and Berlioz admired the opera. Spontini, Berlioz declared, was the genius of the century.

‘Il fut, avant tout et surtout, un compositeur dramatique, dont l’inspiration grandissait avec l’importance des situations, avec la chaleur des sentimens, avec la violence des passions qu’il avait à peindre. … De là enfin la prodigieuse et soudaine explosion du génie de Spontini dans la Vestale, cette pluie d’ardentes idées, ces larmes du cœur, ce ruissellement de mélodies nobles, touchantes, fières, menaçantes, ces harmonies si chaudement colorées, ces modulations inouïes, ce jeune orchestre armé à l’antique, et cette vérité, cette profondeur dans l’expression et ce luxe de grandes images musicales si naturellement, imposées avec une autorité si magistrale, étreignant la pensée du poëte avec tant de force qu’on ne conçoit pas que les paroles auxquelles elles s’adaptent ainsi jamais pu être séparées.’ [2]

[1]: ‘Your opera will obtain a great success; it deserves it,’ declared Napoleon. ‘Your opera abounds in new motifs; the declamation is true and agrees with the musical emotion; beautiful arias, effective duos, a stirring finale; the marche du supplice is admirable.’

[2] : ‘He was, first and foremost, a dramatic composer, whose inspiration grew with the importance of the situations, with the warmth of the emotions, with the violence of the passions he depicted… From these Spontini’s prodigious and sudden explosion of genius in La Vestale, that torrent of ardent ideas; those heart-felt tears; that stream of melodies, noble, touching, proud, and menacing; those warmly coloured harmonies; those unheard-of modulations; that young orchestra armed in the antique manner; and that truth, that deepness in the expression and that wealth of great musical images, imposed with magisterial authority, so naturally embracing the poet’s thought with such force that one cannot conceive that they could ever be separated from the words to which they have been adapted.’

No. 3 Hymne du matin : ‘Fille du ciel, éternelle Vesta’
The morning prayer of the Vestal Virgins.

Conductor : Roger Norrington
Orchestre Radio-Lyrique et Choeurs de la RTF
Paris 1976

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