❦  The Encyclopedia of Classic Opera
Opera·Almanac
Opera in the Repertoire · Romantic

La poupée

Music by Edmond Audran · libretto by Maurice Ordonneau · premiered 1896

La poupée (The Doll) is an opéra comique in a prelude and three acts composed by Edmond Audran with a libretto by Maurice Ordonneau. The libretto was based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann, about a friar who falsely promises to marry his rich uncle's daughter to fool his uncle into giving money to the monastery; the scheme involves creating a doll that looks like the daughter. Then, the uncle's daughter fools the friar into marrying her by substituting herself for the doll.

Text from the Wikipedia article "La poupée", 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.

Read the full biography →

Other Operas by Edmond Audran