What is "amadis"

Amadis is an opera in three acts with prologue by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Jules Claretie based on the Spanish knight-errantry romance Amadis de Gaula, originally of Portuguese origin, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.

It was first performed at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 1 April 1922, nearly ten years after Massenet's death. Massenet had started to compose the piece in 1895 but shelved it and completed it clandestinely in the last years of his life. Amadis is one of three operas by Massenet to have been premiered posthumously; the others are Panurge (1913) and Cléopâtre (1914).

Amadis has gained no lasting popularity but was revived (and recorded on the Koch Swann label) during the Massenet Festival in Saint-Étienne, France in 1988.

Amadis or Amadis de Gaule (Amadis of Gaul) is a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Nicolas Herberay des Essarts' adaptation of Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula. It was premiered by the Paris Opera at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal sometime from January 15 to 18, 1684. There was a later production at Versailles without scenery or machines in 1685.

There are a number of things named Amadis, most of them named after the romance novel Amadis de Gaula. These include:

• Amadis of Greece, 1530 sequel by Feliciano de Silva to the novel Amadis de Gaula
• Amadis (Lully), 1684 opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully
• Amadis de Grèce, 1699 opera by André Cardinal Destouches
• Amadigi di Gaula, 1715 opera by George Frideric Handel
• Amadis de Gaule (La Borde and Berton), 1771 opera by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Pierre Montan Berton
• Amadis de Gaule (J.C. Bach), 1779 opera by Johann Christian Bach
• Amadis (Massenet), 1922 opera by Jules Massenet