Italiano, ma non troppo...

Cherubini was admired for his dramatic outbursts, which did not shrink from harshness or radicalism: the ‘Revolutionary’ opéra-comique Lodoïska foreshadowed in 1791 what Médée realised to the full in 1797. It is hardly surprising that Beethoven and Weber should find they could relate to this music which conveys the violent emotions of the heroine in so modern a fashion. In Les Abencérages another genre submits to Cherubini’s conceptions of opera: the old tragédie lyrique.