Béatrice (opera)

Béatrice is a légende lyrique (opera) in four acts of 1914, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Caillavet and Flers, after the short story La légende de Soeur Béatrix by Nodier.

Nodier’s work was first published in La Revue de Paris in October 1837. The story was chosen by the composer for its variety of dramatic situations; the opera is a serious lyric drama, unprecedented in Messager’s output, generally weighted towards operetta. The music critic Pierre Lalo, commenting on the Paris premiere, noted the impact of the second act love duet and considered the fourth act to be most well written.

Béatrice was first performed at Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 21 March 1914, and was subsequently produced in Buenos Aires on 15 July 1916 and Rio de Janeiro on 20 September 1916. The Opéra-Comique in Paris mounted the work on 23 November 1917, with Yvonne Chazel in the title role, Charles Fontaine, Félix Vieuille and André Baugé among the cast conducted the composer, with a revival there in 1927 conducted by Albert Wolff with Yvonne Gall in the title role, Félix Vieuille and Roger Bourdin. The opera was broadcast by French radio in 1957, with Jacqueline Brumaire in the title role, Solange Michel, Raphael Romagnonli and Robert Massard, conducted by Gustave Cloëz. The complete work lasts around two and a half hours.

A courtyard of the Abbaye d’Épines fleuries. On the right a grill looking out over the countryside, on the left the entrance to a chapel.
As the curtain rises Béatrice relates to the other nuns the story of how the monastery came to be built. A gardener brings in flowers. Béatrice, 18 years old, claims for herself the charge of looking after the altar to the virgin; her excessive ardour earns her a rebuke.
Alone with Odile and Blandine, the devout Béatrice offers food to a gypsy woman who passes by, and who tells Béatrice’s fortune, predicting for her an existence of all the human passions; she is dismissed by Béatrice. The bishop enters, to whom Béatrice tells of her entry to the sisterhood as a result of her prayers for the recovery of Lorenzo, a young man who had returned injured from battle with the Turks.
Béatrice is stunned to hear the voice of Lorenzo approaching; he enters and pleads with for her to leave with him. She refuses but two companions of Lorenzo appear and they abduct Béatrice. When they have gone, the statue of the virgin comes to life, closes the monastery gate, takes up the cloak of Béatrice and enters the monastery.

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Wikipedia