Uthal is an 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 one act by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 composer Étienne Méhul

Étienne Méhul

Etienne Nicolas Méhul was a French composer, "the most important opera composer in France during the Revolution." He was also the first composer to be called a "Romantic".-Life:...

. 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...

, by Jacques-Benjamin-Maximilien Bins de Saint-Victor is based on the Ossian

Ossian

Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...

 poems of James Macpherson

James Macpherson

James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...

. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

, 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 17 May 1806. Méhul tried to give the work a dark, "Scottish" atmosphere by eliminating the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

s from the orchestra and replacing them with viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

s.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 17 May 1806 (Conductor: - )
Uthal	haute-contre Haute-contre The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:...	Jean-Baptiste-Sauveur Gavaudan
Malvina	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...	Julie-Angélique Scio Julie-Angélique Scio Julie-Angélique Scio was a leading French soprano. Born in Lille as Julie-Angélique Legrand, she married the composer Etienne Scio. She made her debut in Paris in 1792...
Ullin	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...	Pierre Gaveaux Pierre Gaveaux Pierre Gaveaux was a French operatic tenor and composer, notable for creating the role of Jason in Cherubini's Médée and for composing the first operatic version of the story that later found fame as Fidelio....
Larmor	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...	Jean-Pierre Solié Jean-Pierre Solié Jean-Pierre Solié was a French cellist and operatic singer. He began as a tenor, but switched and became well-known as a baritone. He sang most often at the Paris Opéra-Comique...
Chief bard	bass	Baptiste Cadet

Synopsis

Uthal has seized the lands of his father-in-law Larmor, who sends the bard Ullin to get help from Fingal, chief of Morven. Malvina, Uthal's wife and Larmor's daughter, is divided between love for her husband and her father and seeks in vain to delay the war. Uthal is beaten in battle and sentenced to banishment. When Malvina offers to follow him into exile, Uthal confesses that he has been wrong and he and Larmor are reconciled.

The work

Uthal was part of the European vogue for the Ossianic poems of Macpherson. Another notable example from the time is the opera Ossian, ou Les bardes

Ossian, ou Les bardes

Ossian, ou Les bardes is an opera in five acts by the French composer Jean-François Le Sueur. The libretto, by Alphonse François "Paul" Palat-Dercy and Jean-Marie Deschamps, is based on the Ossian poems of James Macpherson , which had been translated into French by Pierre-Prime-Félicien Le...

(1804) by Méhul's rival Jean-François Le Sueur

Jean-François Le Sueur

Jean-François Le Sueur was a French composer, best known for his oratorios and operas.-Life:...

. In fact, critics accused Méhul's librettist Saint-Victor of copying Les bardes, an allegation Saint-Victor rejected, claiming his work would have been ready in 1804 had it not been for a "host of obstacles".

Méhul's orchestration in Uthal is strikingly experimental. In his Treatise on Orchestration, Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

, an admirer of the composer, wrote, "Méhul was so struck by the kinship between the sound of violas and the dreamy character of Ossianic poetry that in his opera Uthal he used them constantly, even to the complete exclusion of the violins. The result, according to the critics of the day, was an intolerable monotony which ruined the opera's chances of success. This is what prompted Grétry to exclaim: 'I'd give a louis d'or

Louis d'or

The Louis d'or is any number of French coins first introduced by Louis XIII in 1640. The name derives from the depiction of the portrait of King Louis on one side of the coin; the French royal coat of arms is on the reverse...

 for the sound of an E string!'" Part of this statement has been challenged. Edward Dent

Edward Joseph Dent

Edward Joseph Dent, generally known by his initials as E. J. Dent was a British writer on music....

 wrote, "It has been suggested that the opera would for this reason [i.e. the lack of violins] be unbearably tedious, but, as Sir Donald Tovey has pointed out, Uthal is in one act only and quite short, so that its peculiar colouring would hardly have time to become oppressive." In fact, contemporary critics praised Uthal, it was the public that was less enthusiastic and the opera was withdrawn after 15 performances.

The overture depicting the heroine Malvina crying out for her lost father amid the storm has been compared to similar opening music in Grétry's Aucassin et Nicolette

Aucassin et Nicolette (opera)

Aucassin et Nicolette, ou Les moeurs du bon vieux tems is a French comédie mise en musique in four acts by André Grétry. The work was first performed at Versailles on 30 December 1779 and at the Comédie-Italienne...

and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride

Iphigénie en Tauride

Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard....

(both 1779). Winton Dean

Winton Dean

Winton Dean is an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research concerning the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of Handel, as detailed in his book Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques .Dean was born in Birkenhead...

 describes it as "athematic, at moments almost atonal

Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...

, and in no definable form."

Sources

• Adélaïde de Place Étienne Nicolas Méhul (Bleu Nuit Éditeur, 2005)
• Edward Joseph Dent The Rise of Romantic Opera (Cambridge University Press, 1979 edition)
• Winton Dean, chapter on French opera in Gerald Abraham (ed.) The New Oxford History of Music Volume 8: The Age of Beethoven 1790-1830 (Oxford University Press, 1988)
• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)
• Hugh Macdonald (ed, and translator) Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise: a Translation and Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
• Ian Kemp (ed.) Berlioz: Les Troyens (Cambridge University Press, 1988)
• Del Teatro (in Italian)
• Amadeus Online