THE FIRST OPERA?
It was during his sojourn in Italy that Adam wrote what has become his best known work, Le jeu de
Robin et de Marion, best translated as “Robin and Marion, a play with music.” It was a sort of offering
from his employer, the Count of Anjou (based in Sicily), to the king of Naples, before whom it was
performed in 1283. With its alternation of dialogue and sixteen diminutive monophonic dance-songs and
duets, this work has often been anachronistically compared with the later “singspiel” or comic opera.
More appropriately, it can be described as an acted-out pastourelle, for that is the narrative tradition to
which its dramatized plot belongs. Marion, a shepherdess, loves the shepherd Robin (as she tells us in the
opening song, a modified virelai; Ex. 4-9); accosted by Sir Aubert, a knight out hunting, she resists; Robin
goes to town in search of protection for her; while he is gone Sir Aubert comes back, abducts Marion;
Robin, warned by his friend Gautier, pursues, is beaten back; Marion escapes anyway; the lovers,
reunited, celebrate.
EX. 4-9 Adam de la Halle, Robins m’aime (from Le jeu de Robin et de Marion)