Publisher's Synopsis
Sapho is a pièce lyrique ("lyric play," an opera in a declamatory style) in five acts. The music was composed by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Cain and Arthur Bernède, based on the novel of the same name by Alphonse Daudet. It was first performed on 27 November 1897 by the Opéra Comique at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet in Paris with Emma Calvé as Fanny Legrand. A charming and effective piece, the success of which is highly dependent on the charisma of its lead soprano. "Sapho" is, like so many of Massenet's operas, superbly professional. He wrote well for the voice, orchestrated expertly, knew exactly what he was doing. He well knew how to tickle his audience, and could be outrageously sentimental - as he is in the last act of "Sapho," with the solo violin weeping away in the famous Massenet kind of treacle. "Sapho" is a collation, with its quotes (deliberate) from other operas, its touch of folk music, its in-and-out dances, its opportunities for vocal and histrionic display. It is a "vehicle," ... and sopranos must love it. This is a reprint not a original, very hard to find vocal score in French and English
