Uthal

Description

On May 17, 1806, the Opéra-Comique presented the first performance of a curious opera by Méhul, Uthal, based on a libretto inspired by Ossian, with a distinctly romantic hue. Lionel de La Laurencie was not mistaken, even as late as 1925, when he commented on the most original lyrical creations of the Napoleonic period, challenging the prevailing idea that only superficial pomp characterized the music of that time. It was thanks to the success of Les Bards by Lesueur in 1804, on the stage of the Imperial Academy of Music, that the Opéra-Comique commissioned Méhul to create a short and striking work, inspired by the Ossianic reveries of Macpherson that France was then discovering. The composer had the brilliant—and risky—idea of musically translating the mists of a fantasized Scotland with the "gray" sound of an orchestra without violins. The gothic tone of the wind instruments and the melancholic poetry of a harp sporadically emerging from the ensemble contrast with the warrior choruses and the belligerent accents of Larmor or Uthal. From the very opening, Méhul innovates by having the character of Malvina call out desperately for her father from offstage. The chorus itself is colored only by three-part male voices. The Hymn to the Sun, an eminently romantic song of bards, will stand out as one of the composer’s best pieces, which the students of the Conservatory will sing at his grave during his funeral in 1817. "The opera Uthal, performed in 1806, offered Mr. Méhul a rich harvest in the field of novelty. Uthal is an Ossianic subject, an unknown world where musical art had not yet set foot." The Flying Camp, 1819.