Les p'tites Michu

Les p'tites Michu (The Little Michus) is an opérette in three acts, with music by André Messager and words by Albert Vanloo and Georges Duval.

The piece is set in Paris in the years following the French Revolution and depicts the complications ensuing after the identities of two girls become confused in their infancy.

It became an international success, with productions in four continents, including an unusually long run of 400 performances in London, and had subsequent revivals in Paris.

[4] Discouraged by these failures, Messager resolved to compose no more, and retreated to a cottage in the English countryside with his wife, the Irish songwriter Hope Temple.

The Marquis, before disappearing to evade arrest by revolutionary forces, entrusts the infant girl to the Michus, paying the family a sum of money that allows them to open a prosperous shop.

The Marquis des Ifs, now a general, sends Bagnolet to find his daughter, whose hand he has promised to lieutenant Gaston Rigaud, an officer who saved his life.

She realizes that she has made a mistake: her sister loves Gaston, and she herself would prefer the common life of the shop and marriage to Aristide.

Madame Michu forbids her husband to hand the two young women to their respective bridgrooms: "Don't you touch them, or you'll mix them up again!"

The English adaptation was by Henry Hamilton, with lyrics by Percy Greenbank, and was produced by George Edwardes at Daly's Theatre.

[14] A piece of comic business introduced during the run involved a fictional animal called the Gazeka, which became a London fad.

[18] A recording of the complete opera was made in May 2018 by the Compagnie Les Brigands, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, and the Choeur d'Angers-Nantes Opéra, conducted by Pierre Dumoussaud.