Fortunio

Fortunio is a comédie lyrique or opera in four acts (originally five) and five tableaux by the French composer André Messager. The libretto by Gaston Arman de Caillavet and Robert de Flers is based on Alfred de Musset's 1835 comedy Le Chandelier. It was first performed by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris, on 5 June 1907, and remained part of the regular repertory until the 1940s. In recent years it has been revived in several productions in France and other countries. The opera has no spoken dialogue and comprises completely sung recitative and arias. Fortunio, clerk to the lawyer Maître André, becomes the decoy for an affair between Jacqueline – the lawyer's wife – and Clavaroche, an army officer, Fortunio falls in love with Jacqueline before discovering what is going on between her and the officer. Eventually she falls for Fortunio's innocent charm and sends Clavaroche away.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Fortunio (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the Composer

André Charles Prosper Messager (French: [mɛsaʒe]; 30 December 1853 – 24 February 1929) was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet Les Deux Pigeons (1886) and opéra comique Véronique (1898) have had lasting success; Les p'tites Michu (1897) and Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) were also popular internationally. Messager took up the piano as a small child and later studied composition with, among others, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. He became a major figure in the musical life of Paris and later London, both as a conductor and a composer. Many of his…

Text from the Wikipedia article "André Messager", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Other Operas by André Messager

• Isoline
• L'amour masqué
• La Basoche  (1514)
• François les bas-bleus  (1883)
• La Béarnaise  (1885)
• La fauvette du temple  (1885)
• Béatrice  (1914)
• La petite fonctionnaire  (1921)