La Chartreuse de Parme is a four-act opera in eleven tableaux by Henri Sauguet with a French libretto by Armand Lunel after the 1839 novel of the same name by Stendhal.
[2] Lunel was keen to focus on all aspects of Stendhal's novel: historical, political, sentimental, but the final text concentrates on the latter, for which Sauguet's music effected a progressive ascension towards a more pure and rarefied love.
[2] The libretto starts when Fabrice, refusing military heroics, has made a clandestine return to his mother and aunt Gina near the Swiss-Italian frontier, thus first seeing Clélia.
[4] Cuts were made after the dress rehearsal and following the premiere on 16 March 1939 (which still lasted five hours with three intervals)[5] performances were given at the Paris Opera up to June that year.
The opera was revised and revived in Grenoble to coincide with the 1968 Winter Olympics with Georges Liccioni (Fabrice), Cora Canne-Meyer (Sanseverina) and Christiane Stutzmann (Clélia), conducted by the composer.
[5] Manuel Rosenthal conducted a French radio broadcast of the work at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1958[3] with Joseph Peyron, Geneviève Moizan, and Denise Scharley.
The first tableau, in the palace of the Duchess Sanseverina during a ball shows Fabrice's fears at losing Clélia; he annoys his aunt by talking about his love, and offends Mosca.
Clélia's father hopes to find her a better match but a misunderstanding between the young people occurs when she overhears a comment that Fabrice loves the duchess.
[1] Darius Milhaud (who attended seven consecutive performances) claimed that he knew nothing of the quality of Chartreuse de Parme since Pelléas et Mélisande or Pénélope.
Stravinsky situated the opera "in the line of Bizet, Delibes, Milhaud, Poulenc", while Charles Koechlin summed up his thoughts on the work in three words: "naturel, simplicité, sincerité", and made a comparison with Chabrier.
At various points Sauguet exploits an iambic rhythm which serves to express heightened emotions, such as Fabrice writing his farewell letter to Gina, or the final moments of the opera.
[3] The overture, depicting the Battle of Waterloo, was withdrawn before the premiere, but Sauguet used it in his war-time Symphonie expiatoire, dedicated to innocent victims of war.