La cigale et la fourmi
Music by Edmond Audran · libretto by Henri Chivot · premiered 1886
La cigale et la fourmi (The Grasshopper and the Ant) is a three-act opéra comique, with music by Edmond Audran and words by Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru. Loosely based on Jean de La Fontaine's version of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper, the opera shows the lives of two young women, one prudent, like the ant, the other improvident and reckless, like the grasshopper. Unlike the Aesop fable this version has a happy ending, with the "ant" looking after the destitute "grasshopper". The work was first performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris on 3 October 1886, running for 141 performances. It was later adapted into English for a long-running production in London and productions in New York, Australia and New Zealand.
Text from the Wikipedia article "La cigale et la fourmi", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Achille Edmond Audran (12 April 1840 – 17 August 1901) was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas and operettas. After beginning his career in Marseille as an organist, Audran composed religious music and began to write works for the stage in the 1860s and 1870s. Among these, Le grand mogol (1877) was the most popular and was later revived in Paris, London and New York. In 1879 he moved to Paris, where some of his pieces achieved considerable success both in France and abroad, including Les noces d'Olivette (1879), La mascotte (1880), Gillette de Narbonne (1882), La cigale et la fourmi (1886), Miss Helyett (1890) and La poupée (1896). Most of his…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Edmond Audran", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Edmond Audran
- La poupée
- La mascotte (1880)
- Gillette de Narbonne (1882)