La Camargo (opera)

La Camargo is a 3-act opéra comique with music by Charles Lecocq and words by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo.

[2] The two main characters of Leterrier and Vanloo's libretto, La Camargo and Louis Mandrin, are fictionalised versions of real historical figures.

Pontcalé, who prides himself on his detective ability, explains to everyone that he has been asked by the police authorities to help them track down and capture the notorious Mandrin, who is believed to be in Paris.

The robber's identity has been established by a recent deed of criminal daring: the robbery of a château near St. Germain, occupied by a Spanish aristocrat, Juana de Rio Negro.

She tells him, and all present, the details of the burglary but admits that she cannot distinguish between her dreams and the real events of that night – did the dashing intruder make love to her or not?

Juana returns and, seeing the robber, recognises him as the man who stood at her bedside when she awoke from her puzzling dreams on the night of the robbery.

He reaches the green room, and in a farcical scene is pursued by his uncle, Péruchot, and his fiancée, Colombe, who find him hiding among the ladies of the ballet, and drag him away.

Pontcalé, furious that a robbery has been committed under his supposedly keen eye, orders that the doors be locked and a search instituted immediately.

The search results in nothing but the discovery of the broken window pane, and the conclusion that the robbery is the work of the terrible but unrecognised Mandrin, on whom war is declared by all present in a lively concerted piece and chorus.

Believing Mandrin to be the Chevalier de Valjoly, she imagines her capture is a joke on his part: a novel way of inviting her to a fête to be given in her honour in the château.

Camargo sends Pontcalé a note detailing the plot, and arranges with Colombe that the latter will take her place in the sedan chair at the appointed hour.

Then, disguised as an organ grinder calling herself Javotte, and in the company of Juana, who is dressed as a street vendor, Camargo makes Mandrin betray himself to her.

[11] Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique considered the piece a mediocre opera beautifully staged, the music "a deluge of couplets".

[3] The Athenaeum thought a libretto about "the Dick Turpin of France" unlikely to appeal to the Parisian public but speculated that the piece might be saved by Lecocq's score, worthy of the best of his earlier successes.