Barbe-bleue (opera)

[2] Other distractions during the period were the marriage on 9 August in Étretat of his eldest daughter Berthe to Charles Comte (for which he composed a mass) and problems with gout (which he encouraged the press to report).

[1] In 1966 Sadler's Wells Opera produced the work in a translation by Geoffrey Dunn, with Joyce Blackham as Boulotte, Margaret Neville as Fleurette, Eric Shilling as Popolani, John Fryatt as King Bobeche, Julian Orchard as Count Oscar and James Hawthorne in the title role; it was conducted by Alexander Faris.

[7] In 1971 the Théâtre de Paris presented the piece in a disfigured edition, musically and textually, with Jean Le Poulain playing both Bobèche and Popolani.

[8] SCENE: A small rural village with the castle of Squire Bluebeard prominent King Bobèche, not wanting a girl as his heir, abandoned his daughter Hermia when she was three years old.

Now aged eighteen and living as a shepherdess under the assumed name Fleurette, she is in love with the young and attractive shepherd boy Saphir but is not happy that he has not yet proposed marriage to her.

Bluebeard witnesses, in the midst of a storm, what he thinks is the murder of his latest wife Boulotte, but after she wakes up from the sleeping potion, the feisty young lady leads the other "dead" wives in a march on the castle.

[10][11] King Bobèche, Fleurette/Hermia, Count Oscar, Prince Saphir, Queen Clémentine Duvaleix, Claudine Collart, André Balbon, Joseph Peyron, Deva Dassy Orchestre et Choral Lyrique de l'O.R.T.F.