Cigale (ballet)

The programme having commenced with Bastien et Bastienne in a translation by Georges Hartmann and Henry Gauthier-Villars, also included Debussy's Damoiselle élue, with Mary Garden and J Passama, conducted by André Messager, a feature on musical interpretation under hypnosis by Professeur Magnin, poetry readings by Mlle Bartet and Coquelin ainé, songs from Yvette Guilbert, a selection of French operatic airs, a one-act pantomime entitled Feminissima with Jean Delvoye among the singers, and the 2nd act of Don Pasquale with Korsoff as Louise, Fugère as don Pasquale, Edmond Clément as Octave and Delvoye as the doctor.

[3] In the music, James Harding noted the use of an old French carol and "deft variations on Au clair de la lune".

On a cold winter's night, Cigale, whose kindness and carefree nature has led her to lose what little she has, is refused shelter by Madame Fourmi.

She falls to the grounds and dies in the snow grasping her guitar but the ballet ends with her ascending to heaven with the angels.

Harding comments that "The worldly fabulist would have been discomfited at seeing his grasshopper, now a true Massenetic heroine, dying of hunger in the snow surrounded by angels and the murmur of a celestial choir...".