User:Folantin/Les événements imprévus

Les événements imprévus (Unforeseen Events) is an opéra comique by André Grétry first performed at Versailles on 11 November 1779. It takes the form of a comédie in three acts in prose. The French libretto is by Thomas Hales.

Background
This was Grétry's third and final collaboration with Hales, the Anglo-Irish adventurer who had provided the libretti for Le jugement de Midas and L'amant jaloux (both 1778). Hales (known in France as Thomas d'Hèle) gave up writing thereafter and died in December 1780. There is a strong Italian influence on both text and music and the opera has parallels with dramma giocoso. Melchior Grimm claimed Hales had used an Italian drama called Di peggio in peggio ("From Worse to Worse") as his model, but no such work has survived although an improvised Italian play named Les événements imprévus was performed (to no great acclaim) in Paris in 1748.

Grétry and Hales's Le jugement de Midas had been an attack on what they regarded as outdated aspects of French musical drama (Baroque tragédie lyrique and popular vaudeville). David Charlton suggests Les événements imprévus may contain a similar parody of Italian opera. At the time, the French operatic scene was dominated by the German Christoph Willibald von Gluck. Grétry had seen himself as a potential chief rival to Gluck but that role had been taken by the Italian Piccinni. Les événements imprévus may thus be a satirical expression of Grétry's resentment against a composer he had once admired in his youth.

Performance history and reception
Les événements imprévus was first performed for the court at Versailles on 11 November 1779 before transferring to the Comédie-Italienne on 13 November. A revised version which first appeared on 12 October 1780 was more successful.

Contemporary critics did not like the influence of Italian comic opera on Les événements imprévus.

Act 1
Philinte is in love with Emilie but he has a dangerous rival in the form of the Marquis de Versac, a serial seducer who is after Emilie's fortune. Emilie confesses her love for Philinte but Versac wins over her father Mondor. He produces a letter from the Comtesse de Belmont, accusing Philinte of being a seducer and claiming she is already his wife. She does not know that in reality this "Philinte" was the Marquis de Versac.

Act 2
The servants Lisette and René join forces to help the unjustly maligned Philinte by arranging an interview between him and Emilie, whose wedding to Versac is fast approaching. Belmont arrives to warn Emilie against the unfaithful "Philinte". At their clandestine interview, Emilie says she still cannot believe Philinte is really a seducer. Belmont catches sight of Versac and denounces him.

Act 3
Versac realises it is increasingly difficult for the wedding to go ahead as his past is catching up with him. Belmont's uncle, the Commander, has arrived intent on challenging his niece's seducer to a duel. Sick of his life of intrigue, Versac decides to accept. The duel takes place offstage, with both participants firing their pistols into the air. Versac repents his former ways and offers to marry Belmont. He persuades Emilie that the accusations against the real Philinte were nothing but slander and the opera ends with everything happily resolved.

Modern sources

 * Michel Brenet Grétry: sa vie et ses œuvres (F. Hayez, 1884)
 * David Charlton Grétry and the Growth of Opéra Comique (Cambridge University Press, 1986)
 * Ronald Lessens Grétry ou Le triomphe de l'Opéra-Comique (L'Harmattan, 2007)
 * Alfred Loewenberg Annals of Opera 1597-1940 (Third edition, Calder, 1978)