Le Huron is a French opéra comique

Opéra comique

Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...

in two acts by André Grétry. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 is by Jean François Marmontel based on the story L'ingénu (1767) by Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

. It was the composer's first big success with Parisian audiences.

Performance history

It was first performed at the Comédie-Italienne

Comédie-Italienne

Over time, there have been several buildings and several theatrical companies named the "Théâtre-Italien" or the "Comédie-Italienne" in Paris. Following the times, the theatre has shown both plays and operas...

. Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 on 20 August 1768.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 20 August 1768 (Conductor:)
The Huron	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Joseph "Giuseppe" Caillot
Gilotin	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Jean-Louis Laruette
An officer	tenor	Jean-Baptiste Guignard "Clairval"
Saint-Yves	bass
Mlle Saint-Yves	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Marie-Thérèse Laruette-Villette
Kerkabon	bass
Mlle Kerkabon	soprano
Functionary	spoken

Synopsis

The story is set in Brittany and concerns a love affair between a local girl and a man raised by the Huron Indians in America.

Re-creation

- 12 december 2010, Abbaye de Bourgueil (France), music conductor : Julien Dubruque (music only)

- 1 november 2011, Theatre Adyar (Paris, France), music conductor : Julien Dubruque ; stage director : Henri Dalem

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 9 October 2008
• The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5