Ninette (opera)

The opera depicts the complicated but ultimately successful course of true love between two French couples in the reign of Louis XIII.

In the 1870s Lecocq had supplanted Jacques Offenbach as Paris's favourite composer of comic operas, and had continued to enjoy frequent successes into the 1880s.

The Cyrano presented by Lecocq's librettists differs considerably from Rostand's version, being a dashing, confident and good-looking hero.

Cyrano, in accordance with their pact, comes to return Ninon's billet doux, and she is ready to surrender his in exchange, but at this critical moment they both realise that they have never ceased to love each other.

Act III: Picpus, near Paris The thirty days have almost elapsed and Cyrano has duly restrained himself from duelling, in accordance with his undertaking.

Once Cyrano realises, to his relief, that Diane still remains in love with Gontran, he takes the obvious step to free her from engagement to him: he fights a duel.

[4] The Paris correspondent of The Era described Ninette as "a pretty, singularly innocent comic opera with tuneful, elegant music", and observed that it seemed possibly a little out of place at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and would have been well suited to the Opéra-Comique.

[4] The same critic commented that the plot was not novel but had been ingeniously arranged, and the music, though slightly old-fashioned in style, was "charmingly melodious and elegant", lacking only "a stronger dash of originality and drollery".

[4] The Monthly Musical Record felt that the new work "hardly suggests the once-delightful composer of the Cent Vierges, the Fille de Mme.