The protagonist of Saint-Saëns' Proserpine, premiered at the Opéra-Comique on March 14, 1887, is no reincarnation of the ancient goddess, but a Renaissance courtesan well versed in culpable amours. According to the composer, she is a "damned soul for whom true love is a forbidden fruit; as soon as she approaches it, she experiences torture". Yet for all the innocence of her rival Angiola, the unexpected happens: "It is the bloodthirsty beast that is admirable; the sweet creature is no more than pretty and likeable." Visibly enraptured by this delight in horror, Saint-Saëns indulges in unprecedented orchestral modernity, piling on the dissonances beneath his characters' cries of rage or despair. He concluded thus: "Proserpine is, of all my stage works, the most advanced in the Wagnerian system." The least-known, too, and one which it was high time to reveal to the public, in it's second version, revised in 1899.
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