Déjanire

Déjanire is the title of two related French works by Camille Saint-Saëns: Musique de scène pour ‘Déjanire’ de Gallet (1898) and the four-act opera, or drame lyrique, Déjanire (1910, premiered 1911) for which Saint-Saëns himself fashioned the dramatic scheme and libretto using Gallet's tragedy as a basis. The vocal writing in the musique de scène is exclusively choral in the manner of Ancient Greek narration and commentary, while in the drame lyrique it focuses on solo parts as in most operas. The musique de scène was written to inaugurate an arena in Béziers; the drame lyrique, last of Saint-Saëns' twelve operas, was written for Monaco. The latter's libretto has, besides Gallet, Sophocles' Trachiniae as a source, a main character being Hercule, in the path of Händel; Hercules had already been the subject of two Saint-Saëns tone poems: ''Le rouet d'Omphale (1869) and La jeunesse d'Hercule (1877).

==Composition history== Déjanire'' began its life in 1898 as a play with accompanying symphonic music, choruses and a ballet. Fernand Castelbon de Beauxhostes, one of the owners of a newly constructed arena in Béziers (used primarily for staging bullfights), wanted to make Béziers a centre for the performance of open-air opera as well. He persuaded Saint-Saëns to write the score for a performance of Louis Gallet's epic verse-drama Déjanire to inaugurate the project.