Le jour et la nuit (opera)
Since La fille de Madame Angot (1872), Lecocq had been successful throughout the 1870s in what the critic Robert Pourvoyeur calls "the same elegantly risqué mould – the wedding night more or less thwarted".
[1] His choice caused some surprise, as the theatre, run by the actor-manager Jules Brasseur, had no reputation for opérette or opéra-bouffe, and was distinguished by the sometimes indelicate content of its productions.
[5] Lecocq, usually a slow and painstaking composer, produced the score for the new work in what was for him the short space of two months, but it was well received and was judged by the critics to show no signs of hasty composition.
[5] To enhance the production Brasseur recruited the rising young singer Marguerite Ugalde from the Opéra Comique as his leading lady, and commissioned lavish costumes and scenery.
He is too busy guarding the border against the predatory Spanish to have time to go to Lisbon in search of a bride, and has delegated the task to his cousin, Don Dégomez, who has chosen a suitable candidate and, as Braseiro's proxy, stood in at the wedding ceremony.
Act III: The courtyard of an inn Braseiro enters, accompanied by Béatrix, her face hidden under a mantilla, so that her husband does not realise the deception.
Calabazas's vengeance is forestalled by a dispatch announcing that the king, tired of his prime minister's frequent absences in amorous adventures, has dismissed him from office.
[1] Reviewing the premiere, the Paris correspondent of The Era, commented that Lecocq had "produced nothing prettier or more attractive since the Fille de Madame Angot made his name."
[5] Other reviewers concurred that the composer was in his best form: "Seldom, if ever, has anything more graceful and sparkling emanated from his pen";[12] "melodic invention and masterly orchestration … not an opéra-bouffe but a legitimate comic opera of the school in which Auber was pre-eminent".
[13] When the work was revived in Paris in 1897, Le guide musical remarked that Lecocq's score showed up "the lack of invention and the sloppiness of our current operetta composers".
