About the work
La reine de Chypre is a five-act grand opera by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. It dramatises the fate of the historical Catarina Cornaro amid the fifteenth-century conflict between Cyprus and Venice. It premiered on 22 December 1841 at the Paris Opéra (Salle Le Peletier), with Rosine Stoltz, Gilbert Duprez and Paul Barroilhet in the leading roles.
Plot
The Venetian noblewoman Catarina is forced by the Council of Ten to marry Jacques de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, instead of her beloved Gérard de Coucy. Gérard, later plotting to assassinate the king, recognises in him the man who once saved his life. Poisoned by Venice, the dying king passes the crown to Catarina; together with Gérard, who renounces her for the sake of her honour, she defends the island against the Venetian invasion.
Cultural significance
Richard Wagner, who prepared the vocal score for the premiere, praised the opera effusively in the Dresden Abend-Zeitung as the best thing seen on the Paris stage since Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, hearing in it a synthesis of national styles. George Sand, by contrast, found the evening boring to death despite its splendour. Contemporaries counted the work among Halévy's greatest triumphs, though it has been staged only rarely since the nineteenth century.