Composer, scholar of ancient Greek art and professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1909 to 1936, during the 1880s Maurice Emmanuel studied with Léo Delibes, Théodore Dubois, and Ernest Guiraud. The first time he received recognition, however, was for his groundbreaking doctoral thesis, La Danse grecque antique, which he defended at the Sorbonne in 1896. A composer of many musicological works at the beginning of the 20th century, Emmanuel was recognised as an outstanding musician by Paul Dukas, Ferruccio Busoni, Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux.

Beginning in 1895 Emmanuel composed the first version of his opera Prométhée enchaîné, which was completed in 1898. Of this five-act Prométhée only three sheets survive, in the Museum-Library of the Paris Opéra, as Emmanuel destroyed the manuscript. Between 1916 and 1918, Emmanuel composed a ‘lyrical tragedy’ which he then presented to Camille Chevillard and Gabriel Pierné in the winter of 1918-1919, as the two maestros were at the time sharing the musical direction of the Lamoureux-Colonne orchestra. The premiere of the first act took place on 23 March 1919, performed by the Lamoureux-Colonne orchestra, under the direction of Chevillard, with the famous tenor Léon Laffitte in the role of Prometheus.

Prométhée would never be performed in its entirety during the composer’s lifetime. It was not until 1959 that the three acts of the lyrical tragedy were performed in concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The family archives of the Association Maurice Emmanuel kept a complete recording on magnetic tapes of this historic evening. More than fifty years later, Melism Records decided to publish it, in a superb edition including the original French translation, done by Maurice Emmanuel himself, from Aeschylus’s tragedy.

Cast:
- Prométhée: Jean Mollien (tenor)
- Hermès: Yvon Le Marc’Hadour (bass)
- Io: Genviève Moizan (soprano)
- Les Océeanides: Madalen Lierman (soprano), Micheline Grancher (mezzo-soprano), Simone Codinas (mezzo-soprano)