The Flower Duet
Encyclopedia
The Flower Duet is a famous duet
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...

 for sopranos from Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...

' opera Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...

, first performed in Paris in 1883. The duet takes place in Act 1 of the three act opera, between characters Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...

 priest, and her servant Mallika, as they go to gather flowers by a river. Its ubiquitous presence in films and popular music since the mid-1980s was inaugurated by its usage in the 1983 horror film The Hunger.

Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

's Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

also contains a number (Il Cannone Del Porto) often known as the Flower Duet.

Translation of Mallika part

English French

Under the dense canopy

Where the white jasmine

Blends with the rose

On the flowering bank

Laughing at the morning

Come, let us drift down together

Sous le dôme épais

Où le blanc jasmin

À la rose s’assemble

Sur la rive en fleurs,

Riant au matin

Viens, descendons ensemble.

Let us gently glide along

With the enchanting flow

Of the fleeing current

On the rippling surface

With a lazy hand

Let us reach the shore

Where the source sleeps

And the bird sings

Doucement glissons

de son flot charmant

Suivons le courant fuyant

Dans l’onde frémissante

D’une main nonchalante

Viens, gagnons le bord,

Où la source dort et

L’oiseau, l’oiseau chante.

Under the dense canopy

Under the white jasmine

Let us drift down together

Sous le dôme épais

Où le blanc jasmin,

Ah! descendons ensemble!

Translation of Lakme part

English French

Thick dome of jasmine

Blends with the rose

Bank of fresh morning flowers

We call together

Ah! Glide along

The fleeing current

On the rippling surface

With a lazy hand

Reach the shore

The bird sings, the bird, the bird sings

Thick dome, white jasmine

We call together

Dôme épais le jasmin

A la rose s'assemble

Rive en fleurs frais matin

Nous appellent ensemble

Ah! glissons en suivant

Le courant fuyant

Dans l'on de frémissante

D'une main nonchalante

Gagnons le bord,

Où l'oiseau chante, l'oiseau, l'oiseau chante

Dôme épais, blanc jasmin

Nous appellent ensemble!

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