Mireille is an 1864 opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Michel Carré after Frédéric Mistral's poem Mirèio.

[4] Gounod's biographer James Harding has argued that "what matters in this extended lyric poem is not the story but the rich tapestry of Provençal traditions, beliefs and customs that Mistral unfolds.

"[5] During the course of composition Gounod spent much time in Provence (12 March to the end of May 1863), visiting the sites of the action in the poem/opera, and met Mistral on several occasions at his home in Maillane.

[3] Presenting class differences in a rural setting was not usual at the time, and as the musicologist Steven Huebner comments "some early reviewers had difficulty accepting that a 'mere' country girl could sing an aria with heroic cut such as 'En marche'.

"[7] A pre-performance run-through of the work at Gounod's house included Georges Bizet on the piano and Camille Saint-Saëns on the harmonium.

[8] The opera premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on 19 March 1864; the first night was attended by Ivan Turgenev, who in a letter to Pauline Viardot, ridicules part of Act 3.

[10] This caused vocal problems for Miolan-Carvalho - wife of the theatre director - who got Gounod to make the role easier for her and particularly more 'brilliant'.

This production featured Miolan-Carvalho again in the title role, Galli-Marié as Taven and Andreloun, and Ismael appeared this time as Ramon, while Léon Melchissédec sang Ourrias; Deloffre conducted, as in the premiere run.

[18] The three-act version pleased some later writers, who admired "warmth and colour" and found it "glows with the life and sunlight of the south".

[21] Büsser edited the music and provided orchestrations for some passages for which Gounod's full scoring had been lost (most notably, much of the aria in the Crau scene, and Mireille's death in the finale).

[24] A notable production was given on 24 July 1954 at the Baux de Provence with five thousand seats borrowed from the arenas in Nîmes and Arles, as part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival; the same cast and orchestra recorded the work under Cluytens a few days later in Aix.

[25] Mireille was given its Paris Opera premiere in September 2009 in a production by the company's new director Nicolas Joël [fr] and was released on DVD.

The cast included Thérèse Tietjens as Mireille (Mirella), Antonio Giuglini as Vincent (Vicenzo), Zelia Trebelli-Bettini as Taven (Tavena), Charles Santley as Ourrias (Urias), Mélanie-Charlotte Reboux as Vincennette (Vincenzina), Elisa Volpini as Andreloun (Andreluno), Marcel Junca as Ramon (Raimondo), and Édouard Gassier as Ambroise (Ambrogio), with Luigi Arditi as the conductor, but it was only a succès d'estime.

[27] On 29 April 1887 Mapleson revived the opera with Emma Nevada as Mireille at the Covent Garden theatre, where it was also given in Italian with the happy ending, but in the compressed 3-act form.

[28] On 10 June 1891 it was sung at the same theatre in French, and on 4 December 1899 at the Guildhall School of Music (in an English translation by Henry Fothergill Chorley[29]).

[24] The Italian version was presented in St Petersburg on 9 February 1874,[24] starring Adelina Patti in the title role and her future husband Nicolini as Vincent.

Taven, an old woman who lives in nearby caves, joins them and comments on their jollity, but they laugh at "the witch" and Clemence voices her wish for a rich husband.

Ambroise asks for advice on what to do about his son who is in love with a rich heiress; Ramon suggests beating the boy to cure him.

Second Tableau: The Crau desert Mireille, staggers in already tired, and dazzled by the sun, faints as she hears shepherd's pipes in the distance.

[3] Act 3 allows Gounod to write "a Mendelssohnian scherzo with a dash of Berlioz and creates a frisson by means of chromatic harmony in the manner of Weber's Freischutz.