Persée (Philidor)

Template:Philidor operas Persée (Perseus) is an opera by the French composer François-André Danican Philidor first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris (the Paris Opera) on 24 October 1780. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The text is a reworking, by Jean-François Marmontel, of a libretto by Philippe Quinault, originally set by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1682. Philidor's version was not a success.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast
Céphée (Cepheus), King of Ethiopia	basse-taille (bass-baritone)	Moreau
Cassiope (Cassiopeia), wife of Céphée	soprano	Françoise-Claude-Marie-Rosalie Campagne (called Mlle Duplant)
Andromède (Andromeda), daughter of Céphée and Cassiope	soprano	Rosalie Levasseur
Persée (Perseus), son of Jupiter	haute-contre	Joseph Legros
Phinée, prince of Ethiopia	bass-baritone	Henri Larrivée
Mercure (the god Mercury)	tenor	Étienne Lainez
Méduse Medusa, a Gorgon	soprano	Mlle Duranci (also spelled Durancy)^[1]
Euryale, a Gorgon (travesti)	haute-contre	Jean-Joseph Rousseau [it]^[2]
Stenone, a Gorgon (travesti)	?	Perré
Orcas, an Ethiopian	bass-baritone	Auguste-Athanase (Augustin) Chéron
Proténor, an Ethiopian	taille (bari-tenor)	François Laïs (or Lays)
Un cyclope (a cyclops)	bass-baritone	Durand
A Triton	?	Perré
Vénus (the goddess Venus)	soprano	Châteauvieux
Une nymphe guerrière (a warrior nymph)	soprano	Joinville

^ Stage name of Madeleine-Céleste Fieuzal (or Fieusacq) de Frossac
^ Sources traditionally report only the initial letter (J.) of this singer's name; full details, however, can be found in "Organico dei fratelli a talento della Loggia parigina di Saint-Jean d'Écosse du Contrat Social (1773-89)" (list of the members of this Masonic lodge), reported as an Appendix in Zeffiro Ciuffoletti and Sergio Moravia (eds), La Massoneria. La storia, gli uomini, le idee, Milan, Mondadori, 2004, ISBN 978-8804536468 (in Italian).