Opera Lafayette presents André Grétry's 'Silvain'

Silvain (1770) was both a favorite of Marie-Antoinette in France and the first opera performed in New Orleans in 1796.  Surprisingly, the opera's story of family conflict and reconciliation also upheld the rights of peasants to use land owned by the nobles. In the early 19th Century, French entrepreneurs in the American southwest acquired vast tracts of land from the Mexican government. They guaranteed the peasants who settled these lands the same privileges as those at the center of the drama in André Grétry's  opera. Conflicts around these rights in the United States have continued to the present day, and this story's resonance in the New World has inspired Opera Lafayette’s setting of this modern premiere of Silvain.

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