La grand'tante is an 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 one act by Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

 to a French

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 Jules Adenis

Jules Adenis

Jules Adenis was a French dramatist and opera librettist. Some of his works include Un postillon en gage Sylvie , and La grand'tante .-Operas to librettos by Jules Adenis:...

 and Charles Grandvallet. It was first performed at 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...

 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 April 3, 1867. Though not the first opera composed by Massenet, it was the first of his stage works to be mounted on the stage.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, April 3, 1867 (Conductor:Théophile Tilmant Théophile Tilmant Théophile Tilmant, was a French violinist and conductor born on 9 July 1799 in Valenciennes, France and died on 7 or 8 May 1878, Asnières.... )
Le Marquis de Kerdrel	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...	Victor Capoul Victor Capoul Joseph Victor Amédée Capoul, born in Toulouse on 27 February 1839 and died in Pujaudran on 18 February 1924, was a French operatic tenor with a lyric voice and a graceful singing style.-Career:Victor Capoul began his studies in Toulouse...
Alice de Kerdrel	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...	Marie Heilbronn
La Chevrette	soprano	Caroline Girard Caroline Girard Caroline Girard was a French operatic soprano. She was the mother of Juliette Simon-Girard.-Career:Girard was a principal singer at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris from 1853, creating many roles including Margot in Le diable à quatre by Solié/Adam in 1853, Columbine in Le tableau parlant by Grétry in...

Synopsis

The Marquis Guy de Kerdrel returns from his regiment in Africa to claim an inheritance from his late great-uncle, whom he had never met. He is unimpressed by the condition of the property he has inherited but is reassured by the thought that he can at least liquidate the asset at auction. That way he will have some compensation for his relative's frequent refusal, in letters signed with a characteristic monogram, to give the spendthrift soldier any money. Chevrette, the domestic, lets slip in conversation that the old Marquis had written a new will leaving everything to his widow but that Alice, the Marquise, had been so concerned that his last hours should not be troubled that she refused the notary access to get the document signed thus allowing the scapegrace great-nephew to inherit after all. Guy stretches out to sleep, planning to finish the business the following day. He catches a momentary glimpse of a beautiful girl, almost as if in a dream, and learns from Chevrette later that this must be the widow, whom Guy had imagined to be an old hag... he falls in love almost without hesitation.

Chevrette asks Guy if he might sell the portrait of his great-uncle to Alice as a keepsake of her husband, whom she loved as a father. Guy, now in love, indignantly declares that she may have it as a gift. Chevrette goes to give the good news to the widow and Guy slips into his great-uncle's room to have a look at this portrait and see what his relative looked like.

Guy hopes that the Marquise will continue to live in the castle but she refuses on the grounds that it no longer belongs to her. He mentions the second (unsigned) will, but she declares that she threw it into the fire. He then has the portrait that he promised her brought in from the adjoining room. To everyone's surprise, a document falls out from the frame - it is the famous second will, now signed with the old man's distinctive monogram. It turns out that Chevrette had salvaged the partly burned document from the fire and jammed it into the frame, naïvely believing that if she prayed hard enough to Saint Gildas, the old man would return from the after-life to sign it. Alice is sure that Guy has forged the signature but he will admit nothing. He leaves the mourning widow to her property with the assurance that he will soon return and claim her.