About: Sabinus (opera)

Sabinus is an opera by the composer François-Joseph Gossec. It originally took the form of a tragédie lyrique in five acts (later reduced to four). The French-language libretto, by Michel Paul Guy de Chabanon, concerns the revolt of the Gaulish nobleman Julius Sabinus and his wife Epponina (Éponine) against Roman rule. The opera had its first performance at Versailles on 4 December 1773 in the presence of King Louis XV, before transferring to the Paris Opéra on 22 February 1774. Sabinus was not a success, even in a revised four-act version, and was soon withdrawn. Assessments of the music has been mixed, but some modern critics share Gossec's view that Sabinus prefigures the revolution in operatic practice Christoph Willibald von Gluck would soon introduce to Paris.