La princesse jaune

La princesse jaune (The Yellow Princess) is an opéra comique in one act and five scenes by composer Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique (Salle Favart Theatre) in Paris on 12 June 1872.

Like many French artists at this time, Saint-Saëns was influenced by the Japonism movement in Paris. He appealed to this public taste by choosing a story about a Japanese princess, although it is set in the Netherlands. The music is characterized by a "light and brisk" quality that uses pentatonic harmony to evoke an "oriental" sound. The story follows Kornélis, a student who is fascinated by all things Japanese, and his cousin Léna, who is in love with Kornélis. Kornélis, however, is too obsessed with his portrait of Ming, a Japanese girl, to notice his cousin's affections for him. In a fantastical dream caused by a potion, Kornélis is transported to Japan. At first enthralled, he eventually becomes disillusioned as he comes to the realization that he is in love with Léna.

Although La princesse jaune is the third opera that Saint-Saëns composed, it was the first of his operas to be mounted on the opera stage. It was also his first collaboration with Louis Gallet, who would go on to write the librettos for several more operas and become a close friend of Saint-Saëns. La princesse jaune was commissioned for the Opéra-Comique by the company's director, Camille du Locle, as compensation for not being able to mount Saint-Saëns's other opera, Le timbre d’argent, as promised due to financial reasons. At the opera's 1872 premiere, it was grouped into a set of one-act operas which included Emile Paladilhe’s Le passant and Georges Bizet’s Djamileh. The evening was a complete flop and music critics were hostile to all three operas, a fact not surprising for Saint-Saëns, as critics were regularly hostile towards his music during this point in his career. The Opéra-Comique gave four more performances of the opera that season before they dropped it from their repertoire.

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