La petite mariée

Le petite mariée (French pronunciation: [la pətit maʁje], The Little Bride) is a three-act opéra-bouffe,[n 1] with music by Charles Lecocq and libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo.

The opera, set in 16th-century Italy, depicts the farcical complications after the hero is caught in flagrante with the local grandee's wife.

In the early 1870s Lecocq had come from relative obscurity to supplant Jacques Offenbach as Paris's favourite composer of comic opera.

[2] Granier, Fèlix Puget, Eugène Vauthier and Alphonsine were familiar to Parisian audiences from Lecocq's last success, Giroflé-Girofla just over a year earlier.

Rodolpho did not exact revenge at the time, but warned San Carlo that he would repay him in kind, and cuckold him on his wedding day.

San Carlo has now excused himself from attendance under the pretext of illness, and is about to marry Graziella, the daughter of Casteldémoli, a rich landowner.

They agree that if she and her father give him a little property on their estate that he has long coveted, Rodolpho will release everyone and consider the matter closed, particularly as it emerges that his late wife had strayed with several others as well as San Carlo.

There was some criticism that both in plot and music the piece was reminiscent of Giroflé-Girofla, but numbers singled out for praise included the Podestà's rondo "Le jour où tu te marieras"; the "sword" couplets, "Ce n'est pas, camarade"; two successive numbers in Act II: "Donnez-moi votre main" and the "nightingale" song "Or donc en Romagne vivait"; and most particularly a duet for the hero and heroine, "Vraiment, j'en ris d'avance".

An English adaptation by Harry Greenbank was staged there in 1897 under the title The Scarlet Feather,[8] with additional numbers by Lionel Monckton.