Le grand mogol

A revised four-act version, with words by Chivot and Alfred Duru, was given at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris, on 19 September 1884.

He composed some one-act opéras comiques in the 1860s, but they attracted little attention, and he did not return to the genre until the mid-1870s when Henri Chivot, a family friend, wrote a libretto, Le grand mogol, and invited Audran to set it.

[1] After this, Audran gave up his church post and moved to Paris, where he soon had a solid success with his opéra comique Les noces d'Olivette (1879), which ran for over a year in London, and extended his international fame with La mascotte (1880).

[1] Except for Jane Hading as Irma, Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique give no details of the 1877 Marseille cast.

Act I A public square in Almora, near Delhi At the court of the Great Moguls, the custom is that the Crown Princes must remain chaste until they reach the age of majority, on pain of losing their rights to the throne.

Bengaline and her retinue of bayadères surround the young man, and nearly provoke him to a kiss, but the sudden intrusion of Joquelet prevents it in the nick of time.

When it is finally opened, after much difficulty, it is found to contain a document which reveals that earlier Great Moguls invented the myth of the magic necklace to keep their heirs on the path of virtue.

Bengaline attempts to stop the marriage by telling how she trysted with Mignapour in the rose garden, but when it emerges that she actually met Crakson she finds to her fury that she is obliged to marry him.

The device of the pearl necklace was retained, but the plot was radically altered and new characters introduced, including a comic Frenchman played by Frank Wyatt; Joquelet and Irma became an English pair, Charley Jones and his girlfriend Emma (Fred Leslie and Florence St John) who adopt the Indian personas Ayala and Djemma.

[9] The first American production was in 1881 at the Bijou Opera House on Broadway, in Farnie's version, starring Lillian Russell[10] and Selina Dolaro.

[7] Reviewing the Paris premiere Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique found the libretto lightweight, sustained by Audran's "primitive" music and the splendid staging.

"[13] The Times expressed regret that so intelligent an artist as Florence St John should have let herself be involved in so inane a spectacle, and added, "M. Audran's score is as feeble as the action it serves to illustrate".