| French: Titon et l'Aurore | |
| Image Upright: | 1.2 |
| Translated Name: | Tithonus and Aurora |
| Librettist: | Abbé de La Marre |
| Language: | French |
| Premiere Location: | Académie royale de musique, Paris |
French: Titon et l'Aurore (English: Tithonus and Aurora) is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the French composer Jean-Joseph de Mondonville which was first performed at the Académie royale de musique in Paris on 9 January 1753. The authorship of the libretto has been subject to debate; Mondonville's contemporaries ascribed the prologue to Antoine Houdar de la Motte and the three acts of the opera to the Abbé de La Marre. Titon et l'Aurore belongs to the genre known as the pastorale héroïque. The work played an important role in the so-called Querelle des Bouffons, a dispute over the relative merits of the French and Italian operatic traditions which dominated the intellectual life of Paris in the early 1750s. The tremendous success of Mondonville's opera at its premiere was an important victory for the French camp (although their Italian rivals claimed that this was because they had been excluded from their seats by members of the army). Titon was one of Mondonville's most popular works and went on to enjoy several revivals during his lifetime.
| Original version | Voice types | Premiere, Paris 1753 |
|---|---|---|
| Titon | haute-contre | Pierre Jélyotte |
| l'Aurore | soprano | |
| Promethée (prologue), Eole (pastorale) | basse-taille (bass-baritone) | Claude-Louis-Dominique Chassé de Chinais, called Chassé |
| Palès | soprano | Marie-Jeanne Fesch, called Mlle Chevalier |
| L'Amour (prologue & pastorale) A nymph from Pales's retinue | soprano | Marie-Angélique Coupée (or Couppée) |
| A shepherd | haute-contre | François Poirier |
| Aquillon | basse-taille (bass-baritone) | M. Person |
| Borée | basse-taille (bass-baritone) | Nicolas Gelin |
| Jupiter (prologue)[1] | not stated | role unperformed |