User:Theshoveljockey/Messidor

Messidor is a four-act operatic Drame lyrique by Alfred Bruneau to an French libretto by Emile Zola. The opera premiered on February 19 1897 in Paris. The opera takes its name from the tenth month of the French Republican Calendar.

Although initially successful, the popularity of Messidor was adversely affected by the Dreyfus Affair which was occurring at the time of the opera's premiere. Because both Bruneau and his good friend Zola were active supporters of Alfred Dreyfus during his trial for treason, the French public did not welcome the composer's music for several years afterward. The collaborations between Bruneau and Zola, of which Messidor is the most notable, were considered an attempt at a French alternative to the Italian verismo movement in opera.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, February 19, 1897
Gaspard	bass
Guillaume	tenor	Albert Alvarez
Mathias, Guillaume's cousin	baritone
Véronique, Guillaume's mother	contralto	Blanche Deschamps-Jehin
Hélène, Gaspard's daughter	soprano

Synopsis

The story of Messidor takes place in the countryside where factory-owner Gaspard has diverted a stream in order to serve his gold-mining operations. This creates great hardships for the farmers living downstream. One such farmer, Guillaume, lives with his widowed mother Véronique and must share his dwindling crops with his cousin Mathius as well. Véronique believes that it was Gaspard who killed her husband, and when he approaches with his beautiful daughter Hélène, she refuses him hospitality. However her son, in love with the girl, gives them water. Véronique tells of an ancient legend about a cathedral filled with gold. Once this cathedral and its treasure are discovered, all the gold in the world will vanish.

This leads into the ballet sequence La légende de l’or, a fantasy concerning the legend of gold told by Véronique.

Back in Gaspard's factory, he is preparing a new machine, when he hears that a band of country folk is coming to close the factory. Ultimately, Gaspard's machine fails and he is ruined while the rest of the country folk return to their properous times of old. It is discovered eventually that Mathias was the murderer of Véronique's husband and he ends up killing himself.

Much of the dialogue in the libretto represents a moral debate about capitalism and rampant greed, though Zola does not come down firmly on the side of the simple working folk. Although the hard-working man should be able to succeed and make himself a wealthy man, there is a limit to greed and taken to excess, it is eventually destructive.