La poupée (The Doll) is an opéra comique in a prelude and three acts composed by Edmond Audran with a libretto by Maurice Ordonneau. The libretto was based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann , about a friar who falsely promises to marry his rich uncle's daughter to fool his uncle into giving money to the monastery; the scheme involves creating a doll that looks like the daughter. Then, the uncle's daughter fools the friar into marrying her by substituting herself for the doll. [1]
The opera opened at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris, on 21 October 1896. [2] It then played at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, opening on 24 February 1897, with an English libretto in two acts by Arthur Sturgess. It ran for 576 performances in London, starring Courtice Pounds and Willie Edouin; Edna May later played in the piece. [2] On 11 September 1897, a single matinée performance of La Poupée at the Prince of Wales Theatre launched a British provincial tour with a new company. [3] The opera also had a Broadway production in 1897. [2]
Along with Miss Helyett (1890), La poupée was one of Audran's last successes. [4]
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast (conductor) |
|---|---|---|
| Father Maxime | baritone | Lucien Noel |
| Lancelot, a monk | tenor | Paul Fugère |
| Chanterelle | tenor | Paul Bert |
| Lorèmois, Chanterelle's friend | tenor | Bienfait |
| Balthazar, a monk | tenor | Jaltier |
| Agnelet, a monk | tenor | Bernard |
| Benoit, a monk | bass | Geoffroy |
| Basilique, a monk | bass | Fumat |
| Hilarius | tenor | Dacheux |
| Madame Hilarius | soprano | Gilles-Rainbault |
| Alesia, Hilarius's daughter | soprano | Mariette Sully |
| Guduline | Brandon | |
| Henri | ||
| Pierre, Hilarius's assistant | ||
| Jacques | ||
| Marie | ||
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Maxime and his fellow monks are penniless and starving. A new member of the monastery, Lancelot, asks his rich uncle for aid. The uncle will assist the friars, but only if Lancelot gets married. The monks scheme to trick the uncle by using one of puppet master Hilarius's dolls, pretending that it is Lancelot's wife. Hilarius's newest puppet was made to look similar to Alesia, his daughter. At the wedding, however, Alesia masquerades as the doll, because she loves Lancelot. Lancelot does not discover that he has married the real Alesia until the wedding is over. Now he must leave the monastery with his wife, but the friars receive the generous sum of money from his uncle.
Ernst Lubitsch filmed an adaptation of the story under the title Die Puppe (lit. 'The Doll'; 1919). [5]
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Roméo et Juliette is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris on 27 April 1867. This opera is notable for the series of four duets for the main characters and the waltz song "Je veux vivre" for the soprano.
Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas and operettas.
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Little Christopher Columbus is a burlesque opera in two acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and Gustave Kerker and a libretto by George R. Sims and Cecil Raleigh. It opened on 10 October 1893 at the Lyric Theatre in London and then transferred to Terry's Theatre, running for a total of 421 performances, which was a very successful run at the time. May Yohé created the title role, and Furneaux Cook and E. J. Lonnen were in the cast. Mabel Love, Geraldine Ulmar and Florence St. John joined the cast as replacements.
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Il pesceballo is a 19th-century American pasticcio opera in one act featuring the music of Bellini, Donizetti, Mozart, and Rossini, with a spoof Italian libretto by Francis James Child which makes use of some of grand opera's most popular melodies. The recitatives and chorus parts were written by John Knowles Paine, and James Russell Lowell translated the libretto into English.
The Doll is a 1919 German romantic fantasy comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The film is based on the operetta La poupée by Edmond Audran (1896) and a line of influence back through the Léo Delibes ballet Coppélia (1870) and ultimately to E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story "Der Sandmann" (1816).
La cigale et la fourmi is a three-act opéra comique, with music by Edmond Audran and words by Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru. Loosely based on Jean de La Fontaine's version of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper, the opera shows the lives of two young women, one prudent, like the ant, the other improvident and reckless, like the grasshopper. Unlike the Aesop fable this version has a happy ending, with the "ant" looking after the destitute "grasshopper".
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