La fille du régiment
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2019-03-07

La fille du régiment, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38317 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Operas_by_Gaetano_Donizetti
#French-language_operas
#Opéras_comiques
#1840_operas
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La fille du régiment

The opera was written by Donizetti while he was living in Paris between 1838 and 1840 preparing a revised version of his then-unperformed Italian opera, "Poliuto" as "Les martyrs" for the Paris Opéra. Since "Martyrs" was delayed, the composer had time to write the music for "La fille", his first opera set to a French text, as well as to stage the French version of "Lucia di Lammermoor" as "Lucie de Lammermoor"

As "La fille", it quickly became a popular success, partly because of the famous aria ""Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!"", which requires of the tenor no fewer than nine high Cs. "", a slightly different Italian-language version (in translation by Calisto Bassi), was adapted to the tastes of the Italian public.

The opening night was "a barely averted disaster." Apparently the lead tenor was frequently off pitch. The noted French tenor Gilbert Duprez, who was present, later observed in his "Souvenirs d'un chanteur": "Donizetti often swore to me how his self-esteem as a composer had suffered in Paris. He was never treated there according to his merits. I myself saw the unsuccess, almost the collapse, of "La fille du régiment"."

It received a highly negative review from the French critic and composer Hector Berlioz ("Journal des débats", 16 February 1840), who claimed it could not be taken seriously by either the public or its composer, although Berlioz did concede that some of the music, "the little waltz that serves as the entr'acte and the trio "dialogué" ... lack neither vivacity nor freshness." The source of Berlioz's hostility is revealed later in his review: 

The critic and poet Théophile Gautier, who was not a rival composer, had a somewhat different p...