page_title: Les martyrs
section_title: Poliuto adapted to become Les martyrs
hierarchical_section_title: Les martyrs / Donizetti moves to Paris / Poliuto adapted to become Les martyrs
caption_attribution_description: English: Juliette Borghèse as Marie and François-Louis Henry as Sergeant Sulpice in Donizetti's comic opera La fille du régiment, as first performed on 11 February 1840 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris. Published in Chronique des Théâtres.
context_page_description: Les martyrs is a four-act grand opera by Gaetano Donizetti set to a French libretto by Eugène Scribe. The libretto was based on one written by Salvadore Cammarano for an original Italian version known as Poliuto, which was not performed until after the composer's death. Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte written in 1641–42, the story of which reflected the life of the early Christian martyr Saint Polyeuctus, is the original source for both versions.
  When Poliuto was banned by the King of Naples just before it was due to be performed in 1838, Donizetti became angry at this decision and, with a commission from the Paris Opéra due, he paid the penalty to the San Carlo for not producing an original work as a substitute, and left Naples for Paris arriving on 21 October.
  As his first of two commissions for the Opéra, he proposed to revise Poliuto and, between 1839 and 1840, a French text was prepared by the noted French librettist and dramatist, Eugène Scribe, which conformed to the conventions of French grand opera but which incorporated 80% of the music from Poliuto.
context_section_description: Prior to Donizetti's letter written from Naples to the Paris Opéra on 25 May 1838, it appears that he had already been told that a libretto written by Scribe, Le Comte Julien, was on its way to him. But on 12 May he had written to the tenor Gilbert Duprez (in which he asks that it not be shown to anyone else) where he laid out some of his objections to Scribe's libretto, mentioning potential issues such as the basic storyline and his concern over the vocal capabilities of the proposed dramatic soprano Cornélie Falcon who would have been available to sing the principal soprano role."A traitor to his country and love also as an episode do not please me" The following month, Donizetti wrote to Count Gaetano Melzi exclaiming that he did not want "warlike things [...] I want emotions on the stage and not battles".
  With the Poliuto disaster behind him, Donizetti arrived in Paris in late October 1838 and quickly met and became friendly with the composer Adolphe Adam, who was living in the same apartment building where he was staying. Donizetti offered his Poliuto to the Académie Royale de Musique and it was accepted for performances to begin in April 1840.
  While in Paris, a city which increasingly he came to dislike, Donizetti oversaw stagings of Roberto Devereux and L'elisir d'amore during the following December and January, and he also negotiated a longer time-frame for the delivery of the completed libretto of Les martyrs from Scribe as well as that for having the completed score of the second commission ready. This commission, which became known as Le duc d'Albe, was never completed.
  During 1839, Lucia di Lammermoor, after being somewhat revised and translated into French, became Lucie de Lammermoor, and this version was presented in August. With rehearsals for Les martyrs not planned until early 1840, the composer had time to write yet another opera, La fille du régiment, his first written directly to a French text. It received its premiere on 11 February 1840, by which time Martyrs was in rehearsal for performances in April.
caption: Juliette Borghèse & François-Louis Henry in the premiere of La fille du régiment, 11 February 1840
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.0 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:07:13 13:08:08", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "314", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10518", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2568", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2017"}