Les Choristes
Les Choristes ("The Chorus" or "The Chorus Singers") is an 1877 pastel on monotype by French artist Edgar Degas. Part of a series of similar works depicting daily public entertainment at the time, it shows a group of singers performing a scene from the opera Don Giovanni, the only work by Degas depicting an operatic performance without dancers.
Les Choristes, and other contemporary works of the artist such as Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs, show the influence of French caricaturists of the era. Honoré Daumier is often invoked, but critics and art historians have identified others. Critics at the time praised it, with one suggesting that the singers' "hideous" faces made them seem more real.
After its initial exhibition, Les Choristes was purchased by Gustave Caillebotte, a fellow painter and friend of Degas's who used his own large inheritance to support fellow Impressionists. Caillebotte bequeathed it to the state upon his death in 1894, which added it to the collection of the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, and then later exhibited it at the Louvre. In 1986 it was moved to the Musée d'Orsay with other works of modern art.
At the end of 2009, while on loan to the Musée Cantini in Marseille, the work was stolen. Investigators were unable to find any leads. It was recovered in 2018 when customs inspectors found it in the luggage compartment of a bus they searched in the department of Seine-et-Marne outside Paris; the thieves have not been identified. After being found to be relatively undamaged, it was displayed again at the Musée d'Orsay.
Description The work is a pastel drawn over an earlier monotype, a technique Degas used for some other works around this time, also depicting performers. While some of them led to multiple works, Les Choristes is the only one known to have been derived from this particular monotype. It is rectangular, almost square, 27 centimetres (11 in) high by 32 centimetres (13 in) wide.
It depicts a line of singers along a stage, seen from just to their left and slightly in front. They are illuminated by footlights from in front. All have open mouths; most also have a hand extended towards the audience. The exceptions are the third singer, who seems to be reaching back towards his chest, and the fourth singer behind him, who appears to be raising a sword. They are wearing predominantly orange and yellow costumes.
The faces of the singers in the foreground are distinct, although lacking detail, reflecting the Impressionist aesthetic of the work. In the very background two box seats can be seen overlooking the stage, with patrons, one above the other on a red wall. Degas signed the image at lower left.
Degas told Daniel Halévy that the scene depicted is one from a specific opera, Mozart's Don Giovanni. Specifically, it is the end of the first act, with the chorus celebrating the engagement of Massetto and Zerlina. While other works by Degas depict operatic performances, this is the only one that shows only singers, without any dancers.
Don Giovanni had not been performed much in Paris until 1866, when Jean-Baptiste Faure, who had commissioned works from Degas, was able to apply his baritone to the title role, after which there were many productions. At the time of Les Choristes, Degas had also illustrated Halévy's father Ludovic's Monsieur Cardinal, which takes place backstage during a performance of the opera. Several of those illustrations depicted dancers preparing for, or in, other scenes from Don Giovanni.
History After the show ended, Caillebotte took Les Choristes back into his private collection. He lent it out for one other exhibit, another show focusing on the Impressionists, in New York in 1886. In this exhibit it went under the title Chorus d'Opéra.
At his death eight years later, he left all his art to the state, and Les Choristes was exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg. During World War I, it was again included in American traveling exhibits, this time to San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. After being included in a Degas retrospective in 1924, was transferred to the Louvre in 1929.
For the next 80 years Les Choristes did not leave Paris. It was part of several different exhibits devoted to pastels and Impressionism at the Louvre, and then transferred to the newly opened Musée d'Orsay in 1986. It was part of a special exhibit of Degas works two years later.