Le Roi et le fermier

Artists

Ryan Brown, conductor

Didier Rousselet, director and actor
Monica Neagoy, associate director, choreographer, wig and makeup design, actor

Colin K. Bills, lighting designer
Cécile Heatley, prop and costume coordinator
Bill Harkins, set designer

Thomas Michael Allen, Le Roi

William Sharp, Richard

Dominique Labelle, Jenny

Thomas Dolié,* Rustaut

Jeffrey Thompson, Lurewel

Yulia Van Doren,* Betsy

Delores Ziegler, La Mère

David Newman, Charlot

Tony Boutté, Le Courtisan

Opera Lafayette Orchestra

*company debut

Current Season

♦ Duetto/Duo

♦ Le Roi et le fermier

♦ Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Read reviews of Le Roi et le fermier

Le Roi et le fermier was both a popular and controversial opera in its day, heralded for a storm scene bridging the mood of Act I to the nighttime divertissement in Act II, and for its frank treatment of class issues culminating in Act III. After some adjustment for the censors, the work was premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1762, performed extensively there and in Vienna, and then, ironically, taken up and performed by Marie Antoinette and her troupe of seigneurs in the Théâtre de la Reine at Versailles in 1780. Monsigny’s tuneful, varied music and Sedaine’s clever and subtly subversive libretto work seamlessly to create a vivid evening of 18th-century musical theater.

Program Notes

Synopsis

Monsigny and Sedaine