1807 La Vestale. Tragedie Lyrique en Trois Actes

Description

First Edition, Leather Binding, Scarce

In the original French.

The very scarce first edition of this work. Present here is the first act only of this three act work. Typically, act I is bound as volume I, and acts II and III together in a second volume.

It is impossible to discern whether this is the first or second issue of the first edition, as the publisher's address has been obscured by a Frankfurt based bookseller's label.

With an engraved title page depicting a crowned eagle, the sheet music throughout is engraved.

'La Vestale' was an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy, and was first performed in 1807. It is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece.

With bookplates of the Stockport Public Library to the front pastedown and front free endpaper. With library stamps and markings to the title page recto and verso, and to the following five leaves, and to the final leaf. Library marking to back strip tail.

"Powerful, modern, and animated, Spontini's music drama was the embodiment of the Napoleonic spirit. He succeeded in combining the old Italian music drama with the horror opera and with the Gluckian lyric tragedy." (Lang, Music in Western Civilization).