''Fête Galante'' is an opera in one act composed by

Ethel Smyth Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth tended t ...

to an English-language libretto by Smyth and

Edward Shanks Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (11 June 1892 – 4 May 1953) was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. He also wrote some science fiction.E. F. Bleiler and Ri ...

based on

Maurice Baring Maurice Baring (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent, with particular knowledge of Russia. During Wo ...

's 1909 short story of the same name. It is a tale of late night fête galante involving aristocrats and a

commedia dell'arte (; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charac ...

troupe where jealousy, desire, and multiple masquerades end in the death of one of the characters. Described by the composer as a "Dance-dream", the opera premiered on 4 June 1923 at the

Birmingham Repertory Theatre Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre ...

Background

''Fête Galante'' was the fifth of Smyth's six operas and marked a return to the genre after a seven-year gap. World War I had forced the cancellation of several performances of her works in Europe, and especially Germany where three of her earlier operas were first performed. After '' The Boatswain's Mate'' premiered in 1916, she concentrated her efforts on the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to gran ...

movement and on her writing, producing two books of memoirs. During that time, she was suffering from depression, the onset of deafness, and a loss of confidence in her abilities as a composer. After finishing her first volume of memoirs, ''Impressions That Remained'', in 1919 she approached her friend

for permission to set his short story "Fête Galante" as an opera, hoping that it would tempt her back into composing. He initially refused, but three months later gave his approval. By that time, her enthusiasm for composition had waned and she began work on her second volume of memoirs, ''Streaks of life''. However, she returned to the project in 1921 when she received a commission from the British National Opera Company. It was her first (and only) commissioned opera. The libretto was written by Smyth and the war poet

and closely follows Baring's story of a late night fête galante in which the

Pierrot Pierrot ( , , ) is a stock character of pantomime and ''commedia dell'arte'', whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of ''P ...

is hanged by a jealous king. Like '' Fantasio'', Smyth's earlier comic opera, ''Fête Galante'' involves mistaken identity and disguise, but is a much darker tale. Its title and themes of aristocratic open-air festivity, masquerade and

harked back to the operas of

Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera a ...

and Lully but were also echoed in the neoclassical works of Smyth's contemporaries

Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

, Busoni, and

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

. Smyth composed ''Fête Galante'' in a neoclassical style, incorporating baroque dances and a

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...

set to a poem by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedr ...

. It was to be her only foray into that idiom.

Roles

Recordings

A complete recording of ''Fête Galante'' b
Retrospect Opera
was released in November 2019. It is conducted by the renowned Smyth interpreter and champion,

Odaline de la Martinez Odaline de la Martinez (born 31 October 1949) is a Cuban-American composer and conductor, currently residing in the UK. She is the artistic director of Lontano, a London-based contemporary music ensemble which she co-founded in 1976 with New Zeala ...

. Retrieved 25 September 2016.

References

Sources *Bernstein, Jane (1987)
"Shout, Shout, Up With Your Song! Dame Ethel Smyth and the Changing Role of the Woman Composer"
in Jane Bowers and Judith Tick (eds.) ''Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950'', pp. 304–324. University of Illinois Press *Pendle, Karin Anna (2001)
''Women and Music: A History''
p. 155. Indiana University Press *Wood, Elizabeth (1995). "'The Lesbian in the Opera: Desire Unmasked in Smyth's ''Fantasio'' and ''Fête Galante''" in Corinne E. Blackmer and Patricia Juliana Smith (eds.) ''En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera'', pp. 285–305. Columbia University Press.

External links

Maurice Baring's ''Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories'', including "Fête Galante"
(full text on

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

)
Retrospect Opera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fete Galante English-language operas Operas by Ethel Smyth 1923 operas Operas One-act operas