Significant French Operas

Guercoeur

Tragédie en musique in 3 acts

Music by Albéric Magnard

Libretto by Albéric Magnard

First Performance: Opéra, Paris, April 24, 1931

Cast:
Verité                                             Dramatic soprano
Bonté                                             Mezzo soprano
Beauté                                            Soprano
Souffrance                                     Mezzo soprano
L'Ombre d'une femme                 Mezzo soprano
L'Ombre d'une vierge                   Soprano
L'Ombre d'un poète                      Tenor
Guercoeur                                       Baritone
Heurtal                                            Tenor
Gisèle                                               Soprano

Background

Synopsis

     Act I: A Paradise, where the metaphysical divinities are named Goodness, Beauty, Suffering and Truth, the supreme goddess. Eternal peace for the elected souls. Only the hero, Guercoeur, misses his first existence. He hopes to see Gisèle, his adored one, and the people he liberated from tyranny again. He beseeches Truth, who finally grants his wish, against the advice of Goodness and according to the wish of Suffering, whom Guercoeur escaped during his altogether short existence on earth.
     Act II: Guercoeur's tests on earth, he awakens in his native land, a Tuscan hill, where the choirs of the Illusions, Glory and Love cradle him hope and expectancy. All too soon after he finds that Gisèle has not kept her vow of fidelity to him and has given herself to his best friend, Heurtal. Gisèle implores him, and he agrees to forgive her and to forget. He then goes into the town: certainly the population will not have forgotten him. Another fall from grace, another disappointment: Heurtal has become a blook-thirsty and vile tyrant and has destroyed his own work of liberation. During a riot Guercoeur tries to revive the noble sentiments of before in the collective soul. Unrecognized, rejected, insulted, he falls, beaten to death by his former allies and brothers in the army.
     In the last act, his ghost, betrayed in love, ethics and faith, is welcomed home by Truth, who is sympathetic to his woes. The hero hopes for an immutable peace. Nonetheless, his earthly endeavors, added to the accomplishments of homanity throughout the centuries in order to ensure its freedon, will not entirely die. The goddess, Truth, in a grandiose and moving prophecy, reveals to Guercoeur the far-off future, where love, tolerance and justice will reign throughout the world.

Libretto

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Last updated: January 09, 2008