Le jeune Henri
Role Voice type Premiere Cast
Henri soprano ( role travesti ) Marie Gabrielle Malagrida ( Mademoiselle Carline )
Isaure soprano Anne-Marie Simonet ( Madame Crétu )
Clémentine soprano Jeanne-Charlotte Schroeder ( Madame Saint-Aubin )
Christine soprano Françoise Carpentier ( Madame Gonthier )
Suzanne soprano Mademoiselle Lejeune
Valence haute-contre Augustin Alexandre d'Herbez ( Saint-Aubin )
Sévéro baritone Jean-Pierre Solié
Daniel basse-taille ( bass-baritone ) Simon Chénard
Jacques tenor Philippe Cauvy ( Philippe )
Fideli tenor ? Mr Allaire
Antoine ? Paulin
Roles
Le jeune Henri (Young Henri) is an opera by the French composer Étienne Méhul. It takes the form of a comédie mêlée de musique (a type of opéra comique) in two acts. The libretto, by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, is based on an episode from the life of King Henri IV of France. It was first performed on 1 May 1797 at the Théâtre Favart, Paris. The opera was a failure but the overture was warmly applauded and has often been performed separately since. Known as La chasse du jeune Henri (Young Henri's hunt), it is a piece of programme music describing the course of a hunt from dawn to the killing of the stag. Bouilly was later to become famous as the author of Léonore, ou Lamour conjugal (1798), the basis of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. He had written the libretto for Le jeune Henri (under the title La jeunesse de Henri IV) in 1791 for Grétry, who had turned it down. Méhul had composed the score but the first staging had been delayed for years for political reasons. The premiere was a major disaster thanks to the poor quality of Bouilly's libretto. The audience applauded Méhul but hissed Bouilly. A reviewer in Le courrier des spectacles wrote that it would be impossible to imagine anything worse and that there was no intrigue, no action, nothing of interest.