Le Cid

Le Cid is an opera in four acts and ten tableaux by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, Édouard Blau and Adolphe d'Ennery. It is based on the play of the same name by Pierre Corneille. It was first performed by a star-studded cast at the Paris Opéra on 30 November 1885 in the presence of President Grévy, with Jean de Reszke as Rodrigue. The staging was directed by Pedro Gailhard, with costumes designed by Comte Lepic, and sets by Eugène Carpezat (act 1), Enrico Robecchi and his student Amable (act 2), Auguste Alfred Rubé, Philippe Chaperon and their students Marcel Jambon (act 3), and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (act 4). The opera had been seen 150 times by 1919 but faded from the repertory and was not performed again in Paris until the 2015 revival at the Palais Garnier. While Le Cid is not in the standard operatic repertory, the ballet suite is a popular concert and recording piece which includes dances from different regions of Spain. It was specially created by Massenet for the prima ballerina Rosita Mauri. An opera on the subject had been composed by Sacchini, Il Cid, for London in 1783, and from 1890 to 1892 Debussy worked on, but did not complete, an opera Rodrigue et Chimène also based on Corneille. Performance history After the premiere, the Paris Opera continued to revive Le Cid until 1919, reaching over 150 performances at the theatre by that date. A new production was mounted at the Opéra in the 2014/15 season, conducted by Michel Plasson with Roberto Alagna in the title role. This production was first seen in June 2011 at the Opéra de Marseille in a production directed by Charles Roubaud, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, with Alagna singing Rodrigue. In March–April 2015 at the Paris Opera Alagna reprised the title role, alongside Sonia Ganassi and Annick Massis. Local premieres took place in Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Vienna in 1887, followed by Rome, New Orleans Geneva and Milan in the years following. In New York, the premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1897 was revived in 1901 and 1902, and a cut concert performance on 8 March 1976 at Carnegie Hall with Plácido Domingo and Grace Bumbry was later issued as a commercial recording.