Le Déserteur. Drame en trois actes - Monsigny, Pierre-Alexandre 1729-1817; Sedaine, Michel-Jean 1719-1797 (Paris Hérissant, 1769)
Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729-1817) was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (1813). He is considered, alongside André Grétry and François-André Danican Philidor, to have been the founder the opéra comique.
Le déserteur (The Deserter) is a drame mélé de musique (opéra comique) by the French composer Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny with a libretto by Michel-Jean Sedaine. The work was Monsigny's greatest musical success and is one of the key operas of late 18th-century French opéra comique. The work mixes serious and comic elements, an example of the latter being the behaviour of the drunkard Montauciel. The theme of a last-minute reprieve from execution influenced later rescue opera.
It was first performed on 6 March 1769 by the Comédie-Italienne at their public theatre, the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.
beautiful (modern) new binding
dédié à Son Altesse Sérinissime Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans, premier prince du sang, représenté par les Comédiens Italiens ordinaires du Roi le 6 Mars 1769
Keywords: 18th Century (1701-1800); Opéra comique; Paris (France)