Fortunio (opera)

Alfred de Musset's play Le Chandelier[n 1] was published in 1835 in the Revue des deux Mondes, but was not staged until thirteen years later.

It was produced at the Théâtre Historique, Paris in 1848, and was revived in 1850, but its theme of an adulterous affair scandalized some middle-class theatregoers, which led to a ban on productions from the French government.

The composer conducted, and the audience included his fellow composers Claude Debussy, Reynaldo Hahn, Gabriel Pierné, and Gabriel Fauré, the last of whom reviewed the work for Le Figaro: If there is one subject that had to tempt a musician, it is that of Le Chandelier, especially if this musician possesses, like Messager, the gifts of elegance and clarity, of wit, of playful grace, united to the most perfect knowledge of the technique of his art, the rarest qualities of emotion and delicacy.

Landry, the merry clerk of Maître André, toasts his master, a fine lawyer and the husband of the young and beautiful Jacqueline.

A few days later early in the morning, Maître André awakens his wife, alarmed: one of his clerks saw a man enter at night through the window in her room.

When the young clerks pay their morning respects to her she is touched the devoted response of a blushing Fortunio: the "chandelier" is found.

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 too late; Fortunio enters the lion's den saying that he will throw himself into the ambush from despair of having been used.

As the footsteps of Maître André and Clavaroche approach, she hastily hides the young man in an alcove, not in the same place as her military lover.

So the jealous husband has to apologise for his unwarranted suspicions, and the captain finds no one hiding in the wardrobe; she sends both away, giving the furious Clavaroche a candlestick[n 2] to light his way, thus leaving her alone with Fortunio, who comes out and falls into her arms.

John Eliot Gardiner conducted a complete recording for Erato in 1987 with Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Michel Trempont and Thierry Dran.