Le timbre d'argent

[2] Conrad, an artist, has an unhealthy obsession for gold, and is further engrossed by his own painting of Circe, embodied in the living world by Fiametta, a ballerina.

[2] The librettists for Le timbre d'argent also notably penned the librettos for Gounod's Faust and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Saint-Saëns's opera serves as a "significant link" between these two.

[2] While the music of Le timbre d'argent is both "versatile and fluent", the drama at times poses difficulties, especially the mimed part of Fiametta and the somewhat weak revelation of truth at the opera's end.

A number of the positive aspects of this opera undoubtedly influenced Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, as his first focused efforts on composing Hoffman took place during the first 18 performances of Le timbre d'argent in 1877.

[2] Le Timbre d'argent (in the version without cuts for La Monnaie, 1914), was revived at the Opéra Comique Salle Favart in June 2017 by Les Siècles orchestra, Accentus choir, conducted by François-Xavier Roth and was recorded with the support of the Centre de musique romantique française.