FULL LE CAÏD (Ambroise Thomas) Sarreguemines 2024 Vincent Schmitt, Benoit Schaeffer, Alicia Richard, Anne Brubacher
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: LE CAÏD
- Composer: Thomas Ambroise
- Libretto: Thomas Sauvage Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Casino des Faïenceries de Sarreguemines, France, Classe Lyrique du Conservatoire de Sarreguemines
- Recorded: February 11, 2024
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Vincent Schmitt, Benoit Schaeffer, Alicia Richard, Anne Brubacher, Frederic Klein, Frank Ciftci
- Conductor:
- Orchestra: Matthieu Rupp
- Stage Director: Philippe Barth
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: yessubs, frsubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Le Caïd or Le Kaïd , is an opera buffa in two acts composed by Ambroise Thomas with a libretto by Thomas Sauvage . It was created onJanuary 3, 1849at the Opéra-Comique in the second Salle Favart in Paris.
The opera was originally titled Les Boudjous, in reference to a monetary unit (from the Arabic word “بوجهه”) minted in the regency of Algiers and used in the Ottoman Empire .
The first production of Le Caïd at the Opéra-Comique was directed by Théophile Tilmant and directed by Ernest Mocker . The work received very favorable reviews and was Ambroise Thomas’s first major popular success . The work is emblematic of the popularity of shows evoking French colonial power, following the conquest of Algeria in 1830. It was recreated by the Opéra-Comique onAugust 31, 1851, date of its 100th performance with Caroline Miolan-Carvalho in the role of Virginie . It was staged again for the last time at the Opéra-Comique, onFebruary 16, 1911, accumulating a total of 422 performances by this company.
Outside France, the opera was performed for the first time in Brussels onAugust 26, 1849 ; it is given in London, at the St. James’s Theatre , onFebruary 8, 18506 and in New Orleans onApril 18, 18501 . It was performed in English at the Theater Royal Haymarket in London onJune 18, 1851(under the title The Cadi, or Loves among the Moors ) and in Manchester onDecember 8, 1880. It was performed in German in Vienna in 1856, Berlin in 1857, and Prague in 1860, and in Italian in Milan in 1863, Barcelona in 1865, Florence in 1877 and Naples in 1889 .
Synopsis
A town in French Algeria in the 1840s .
Aboul-y-far, the boss of an Algerian town under French colonial administration, regularly faces virulent criticism from his subjects concerning the taxes he imposes on them. Birotteau, a French hairdresser in the city, offers the boss a “secret talisman” which will protect him from violence and attacks from his subjects. Its price is 20,000 budjou . The boss, a notorious miser, offers the hand of his own daughter Fathma as payment. Birotteau is flattered by the proposal and accepts the offer, forgetting that he is already engaged with Virginie, who owns a flour mill in town.
Meanwhile, Ali-Bajou, the boss’s steward and factotum , has a different plan to protect his master. There is a passionate romance between Fathma and Michel, a drum major in the French army. When Michel and Virginie learn of Birotteau’s agreement with the boss, they are furious. Faced with Virginie’s wish for revenge and Michel’s threat to cut off her ears, Birotteau refuses to marry Fathma in exchange for the “secret talisman”. The boss reluctantly pays the 20,000 boudjous to Birotteau and discovers that the talisman is a recipe for a hair lotion supposed to cure baldness. At the end, Ali-Bajou gets happily drunk on French wine. Virginie and Birotteau get married, as do Fathma and Michel. Michel becomes the boss’s bodyguard; the boss’s only regret is that the whole affair cost him 20,000 budjous.
Quoted from Wikipedia