Barcarolle: A Song History

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The Barcarolle belongs to the Venetian act of Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), where it is a duet for the courtesan Giulietta and Nicklausse, the poet's friend, during a party at her palace.[1] Offenbach did not live to hear the opera: he died in Paris on 5 October 1880 with the score still unfinished, and it was first staged at the Opéra-Comique on 10 February 1881.[2][3] Ernest Guiraud completed the orchestration Offenbach had left incomplete and contributed recitatives, and the libretto was Jules Barbier's adaptation of the 1851 play he had written with Michel Carré, drawn from E. T. A. Hoffmann's stories.[2][4]

Francesco Guardi painting of the Grand Canal in Venice with the Rialto Bridge and gondolas

Francesco Guardi, The Grand Canal above the Rialto, oil on canvas, late 1760s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its Venetian setting, where the Barcarolle’s act takes place; it has no connection to the music.

The tune itself is older than the opera. Offenbach first wrote it for Die Rheinnixen, a work composed for the Vienna Court Opera, billed on its 1864 libretto as a grand romantic opera, and first performed in Vienna that year, with a German text by Alfred von Wolzogen after Charles Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu.[5][6] There the melody was sung by a chorus of elves; it reached Hoffmann as the Barcarolle, and Britannica credits Guiraud with including it in the completed score.[2][5][6] According to Gramophone, Die Rheinnixen was not performed again after 1864 until a Montpellier Festival concert whose live recording was reviewed in 2003.[6]

Lifted out of its opera, the Barcarolle has had a long independent life: the Palazzetto Bru Zane points to its numerous arrangements and its appearances in several films.[4]

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Sources

  1. Metropolitan Opera: "Synopsis: Les Contes d'Hoffmann".
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Jacques Offenbach".
  3. Des Moines Metro Opera: "The History of The Tales of Hoffmann".
  4. Palazzetto Bru Zane (Bru Zane Mediabase): "Les Contes d'Hoffmann".
  5. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Die Rhein-Nixen" (libretto, Vienna, 1864).
  6. Gramophone: "Offenbach (Die) Rheinnixen".