Fortunio comédie lyrique or opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in 4 Acts and 5 tableaux by composer André Messager

André Messager

André Charles Prosper Messager , was a French composer, organist, pianist, conductor and administrator. His stage compositions included ballets and 30 opéra comiques and operettas, among which Véronique, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire also enjoying international...

. The French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Gaston Arman de Caillavet

Gaston Arman de Caillavet

Gaston Arman de Caillavet was a French playwright. He was the son of Albert Arman de Caillavet and Léontine Lippmann, the muse of Anatole France. In April 1893 he married Jeanne Pouquet...

 and Robert de Flers

Robert de Flers

Robert de Flers was a French playwright, opera librettist, and journalist....

 is based on Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...

's comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 Le Chandelier. A stage work in the opéra comique

Opéra comique

Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...

 tradition, the opera contains some spoken dialogue as well as sung recitative

Recitative

Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...

 and aria

Aria

An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s. Fortunio, a clerk of the lawyer Maitre André, becomes the decoy for an affair between Jacqueline and the Captain Clavaroche. Fortunio however, falls for Jacqueline's charms before discovering what is going on between her and the officer.

Performance history

The world premiere was directed by Albert Carré

Albert Carré

Albert Carré was a French theatre director, opera director, actor and librettist. He was the nephew of librettist Michel Carré and cousin of cinema director Michel Antoine Carré...

, conducted by the composer, and produced by the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

 at the Salle Favart in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 on 5 June 1907. Fortunio was revived at the Opéra-Comique during its first 50 years for over 70 performances, with the composer conducting the runs in 1915 and 1920, and Villette singing Gertrude up to 1946. The Opéra-Comique mounted six performances of a new production in December 2009, conducted by Louis Langrée

Louis Langrée

Louis Langrée is a French conductor. He is the son of organist and theorist Alain Langrée. One of his sisters is an amateur cellist....

.

Fortunio premiered just a few months after Messager left his post as director of the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.
The opera was successful, and Messager was invited to assume the post of co-music director of the Opéra National de Paris in late 1907 with Leimistin Broussan.
Fortunio was produced at La Monnaie

La Monnaie

Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....

 in Brussels in 1908 and 1931, and had its UK premiere in 2001 at Grange Park Opera

Grange Park Opera

Grange Park Opera is a professional opera company whose base is The Grange in Hampshire, England. The company was founded in 1998 by Wasfi Kani OBE and Michael Moody...

. The opera was mounted in Bordeaux in November 1984 and Lyons in May 1987, and a co-production between Fribourg, Besançon and Dijon was seen in 2008.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 5 June 1907 (Conductor: - André Messager)
Fortunio	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Fernand Francell
Jacqueline, wife of Maître André	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Marguerite Guiraud-Carré
Landry	baritone	Jean Périer Jean Périer Jean Périer was a French operatic baritone and actor. Although he sang principally within the operetta repertoire, Périer did portray a number of opera roles; mostly within operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini...  also known as Jean-Alexis Périer
Guillaume	bass	Gustave Huberdeau Gustave Huberdeau Gustave Huberdeau was a French operatic bass-baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century...
Madelon, a servant	soprano	Béatrice La Palme Béatrice La Palme Béatrice La Palme , was a soprano opera singer, violinist, and music teacher.-Biography:She was born on July 27, 1878 in Belœil, Quebec and she studied violin with Frantz Jehin-Prume. She performed in public in 1894 then left for London in 1895...
Maître André	baritone	Lucien Fugère Lucien Fugère Lucien Fugère was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory and Mozart roles, he enjoyed an exceptionally long career, singing into his 80s.- Life and career :...
Clavaroche, a captain	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Hector Dufranne Hector Dufranne Hector Dufranne was a Belgian operatic bass-baritone who enjoyed a long career that took him to opera houses throughout Europe and the United States for more than four decades...
Gertrude, a servant	soprano	Marguerite Villette
Maître Subtil	tenor	Maurice Cazeneuve
Lieutenant de Verbois	baritone	Paul Guillamat
Lieutenant d'Azincourt	tenor	Poumayrac
Chorus: Townspeople, clerks, soldiers

Act 1

On the square outside the church, games of boules are in progress.
Landry, the clerk of Maître André toasts his master, a fine lawyer and husband of the young and beautiful Jacqueline.
Maître Subtil passes by with his nephew Fortunio for whom he has just obtained a position with his colleague.
Landry, Fortunio's older cousin, gives advice for his new career, but Fortunio, shy and dreamy, doesn't listen.
A regiment enters, headed by its new captain, the dashing Clavaroche, who asks about potential female conquests.
Discovering the Jacqueline is not available, he naturally decides that he will try to seduce her, and shortly sees her leaving the church.
He gains the confidence of her husband, impressed by his uniform, which will open the doors of André's house. Fortunio too has been enraptured by the sight of
Jacqueline and pours out his emotion as the curtain falls.

Act 2

Next morning, Maître André awakens his wife, alarmed: one of his clerks saw a man enter at night through the window in her room.
To divert her husband, Jacqueline, in tears, while rejecting the charge, accuses her husband of neglecting her.
Maître André sheepishly leaves and Clavaroche clambers out of the cupboard where had been hiding.
The problem requires a solution in the form of a 'chandelier': something to attract suspicion, while leaving the true lover concealed.
The 'chandelier' is found: Fortunio, whom Jacqueline spies through the window.
When the clerks pay their morning respects to her she gets him to serve her - but the devoted response of the young man affects Jacqueline.

Act 3

Learning that Guillaume had seen a man sneaking into Jacqueline's bedroom, Fortunio dreams of being the protector of her affairs of the heart.
This only provokes jeers from the other clerks, but Fortunio doesn't care: he prefers his dreams to harsh reality.
With the 'chandelier' now in place, Clavaroche is able to cuckold Maître André with ease.
At a dinner for four (the wife, husband, lover and the innocent admirer), Fortunio opens his heart in a song whose beauty and innocence eventually wins over Jacqueline, who takes him in her arms.
A moment later, over-hearing the conversation between Clavaroche and Jacqueline, Fortunio understands the role he is playing.

Act 4

Having learnt that Maître André has laid a trap for his wife's lover, Clavaroche has pointed the finger of suspicion at Fortunio by sending the young man a note, supposedly from Jacqueline, inviting him to join her.
To counter the threat, Jacqueline has sent her maid Madelon to warn the young man, but it is too late; Fortunio enters the lion's den. However, Jacqueline tells him: he is not just loved, he is adored!
As the footsteps of Maître André and Clavaroche approach, she hides the young man, but not in the same place as her military lover.
So the jealous husband has to apologize for his unwarranted suspicions, and the captain finds no one hiding in the wardrobe; she sends both away.
She hands the vexed Clavaroche a candlestick to light his way - innocence has triumphed.

Recordings

John Eliot Gardiner

John Eliot Gardiner

Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...

 conducted a complete recording for Erato in 1987 with Colette Aliot-Lugaz, Michel Trempont

Michel Trempont

Michel Trempont is a Belgian operatic baritone whose repertoire extends from the 18th century to the creation of contemporary works. His brother was Pol Trempont , operatic tenor and one time director of the Théâtre de Mons.-Life and career:After studies with Rogatchewsky, Trempont made his debut...

 and Thierry Dran. In a 1962 French EMI recorded excerpts with Liliane Berton

Liliane Berton

Liliane Berton was a French soprano, known principally on the opera stage, but also active in radio recordings and as a teacher.-Career:...

, Michel Sénéchal

Michel Sénéchal

Michel Sénéchal is a French tenor, particularly associated with French and Italian character roles in a repertory ranging from Baroque to contemporary works.- Life and career :...

, Michel Dens

Michel Dens

Michel Dens was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory, both opera and operetta....

and Jean-Christophe Benoit.