Madame Chrysanthème (opera)

Madame Chrysanthème is an opera, described as a comédie lyrique, with music by André Messager to a libretto by Georges Hartmann and Alexandre André, after the semi-autobiographical novel Madame Chrysanthème (1887) by Pierre Loti. It consists of four acts with a prologue and an epilogue and is set in Nagasaki, Japan.

Prior to Madame Chrysanthème, Messager had begun to establish himself as a composer with several ballet scores performed, success at the Opéra-Comique in 1890 with La Basoche and incidental music for the play Hélène in 1891. Refused by Carvalho at the Opéra-ComiqueMadame Chrysanthème was first performed at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris on 21 January 1893 with Jane Guy and Louis Delaquerrière in the principal roles; there were 16 performances at the theatre in the first year.

There were two performances in Monte Carlo on 21 December 1901 and 3 January 1902 with Mary Garden and Edmond Clément in the principal roles. The opera was also seen at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels, on 9 November 1906, in Montreal in 1912, and by the Chicago Opera Association in Chicago and New York (Lexington Theatre) in 1920 with Tamaki Miura, Charles Fontaine and Hector Dufranne.

Although both operas can be traced back to the same original literary source, Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Madame Chrysanthème contrast strongly especially with the mainly internal world of the Puccini setting. The alternation of acts in public and private spaces in Messager's work provides other aspects on the Japan as depicted in the opera, reminding the listener of a teeming world effectively beyond the reach of Europeans: between Messager and Puccini there is a significant contrast between Pierre's failure to understand and master Chrysanthème and Pinkerton's dominance and possession of Butterfly. Messager's librettists changed Loti's original cynical attachment between the main characters into a more genuine love affair, as well as creating the jealous conflict between the two sailors.

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