Le toréador

Le toréador, ou L'accord parfait (The Toreador, or The Perfect Agreement) is an opéra bouffon[1] in two acts by Adolphe Adam with a libretto by Thomas Sauvage.

[3] Originally a single-act work, it was soon split to allow the soprano time to recover her breath in the taxing role of Coraline.

Adam borrowed several existing pieces of music for his score, the most familiar being the circa 1740 French nursery rhyme Ah!

Adam quotes the aria Tandis que tout sommeille from Grétry's L'amant jaloux as well as Je brûlerai d'une flamme éternelle from the same composer's Le tableau parlant.

Kaminski sees music as the fourth character in the opera: the pieces played on the flute by Tracolin, Coraline's vocal prowess which allows a scene recalling the singing lesson in The Barber of Seville; he even finds a premonition of the galop infernal of Orphée aux enfers.