is a French-language opera by Antonio Sacchini,Évé premiered posthumously at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 29 April 1788. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The libretto, by Nicolas-François Guillard, is based on the dramatic poem Caractacus (1759) by William Mason. It was Sacchini's last opera and the score was left incomplete at the time of the composer's sudden death in October 1786. The missing music was written by Jean-Baptiste Rey.
Background
The libretto
Arvire et Évélina was Sacchini's fifth French opera and his fourth collaboration with Guillard, his favourite French librettist. The opera is loosely based on an historical event: the resistance of the ancient British king Caractacus to the Roman invasion of Britain in the first century AD. Guillard adapted Arvire et Évélina from Caractacus, a dramatic poem by the English writer William Mason first published in 1759. Caractacus was a bestseller as it exploited the late 18th-century fashion for Celtic history and myth, especially such figures as the Druids. Mason took the name of his Chief Druid, Modred, from his friend Thomas Gray's famous poem The Bard. In 1776, Mason modified the work for a stage performance at the Royal Opera House with incidental music by Thomas Arne.
Guillard freely adapted Mason, changing the story line and many of the names. For example, he had the villain Vellinus repent because he thought French audiences needed a happy ending. He also felt that some of the names would sound harsh to French ears, arguing that the lack of historical accuracy this would entail would not matter so much as the characters were not part of French national history. Thus, Caractacus became "Arvire", Elidurus "Irvin" and Aulus Didius "Messala".
Sacchini's death and intrigue surrounding the unfinished score
Sacchini had completed some of the score of Arvire by 1786, when he played excerpts to his patron Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. He then became embroiled in intrigues surrounding his attempt to have his previous opera, Œdipe à Colone, restaged. Failure to guarantee future performances of Œdipe was partly blamed for the composer's early death on 7 October 1786 at the age of 56.
The circumstances surrounding Sacchini's death aroused public sympathy and ensured Œdipe was an enormous success when it was performed in Paris in January 1787. The management of the Académie Royale de Musique was equally interested in staging Arvire et Évélina. However, Sacchini had left the score incomplete; almost all the music to the third act was yet to be written. Marie Antoinette was eager to hear the opera and wanted Niccolò Piccinni, Sacchini's fellow Italian composer and former rival, to be given the task of finishing the music. However, the Opéra authorities headed by Antoine Dauvergne preferred the German composer Johann Christoph Vogel. In the event, neither Piccinni nor Vogel were chosen for the job; that honour went to Jean-Baptiste Rey, the batteur de mesure (conductor) of the Académie Royale. Rey's biggest advantage was that he already had the score in his possession. He had suborned Sacchini's lodger Soldato and his servant Lorenzo to obtain the manuscript from Sacchini's house before the police could seal it. He claimed that, on his deathbed, Sacchini had asked him to finish Arvire and produced a signed document as evidence. Although this document was not legally valid, Rey appealed to the Queen and to the xenophobia of some members of the Opéra management, who did not want the task to go to a foreign composer. As the writer on music Melchior Grimm noted ironically, some evidently felt "it was an insult to French musicians for an Italian to be given the responsibility of completing the work of an Italian composer."
Performance history
Arvire et Évélina was first performed on Tuesday 29 April 1788, then not staged again until 2 January 1789. It appeared another 10 times that year and seven times in 1790. Between 1792 and 1799, there were a further 14 performances and another 34 between 1801 and 1809. In 1810, it appeared three more times before being reworked as a two-act piece to accompany other works in 1820 and 1821. It was heard in Paris for the last time in 1827 reaching a considerable total of 95 performances.
