Aim�e Opera Bouffe: Fille de Madame Angot

Article on the forthcoming season. 

Includes plot synopsis. 

Plot synopsis. 

U. S. premiere; opening night; complete cast listing. 

“The Fall and Winter season at the Broadway (until lately the Fifth Avenue) Theatre was entered upon last evening amid very cheerful circumstances. These were represented by a large and brilliant audience, by an entertaining play, and by a capital performance. It is with the play, of course, that we have at present most to do. The new piece selected for production by the Aimée Opera Bouffe Company has become very popular in Europe, and last night’s recital showed that its success was not without reason. A summary of the plot of ‘La Fille de Mme. Angot’ gives but a faint idea of the interest of the work, and besides, a review of its incidents appeared in this place only a fortnight ago. It will therefore suffice to say in respect of this part of the opera that the story told deals with [summary continues]…but it is obvious that the music accompanying it is to be credited with causing the better part of its success. M. Charles Lecocq has written several scores of more than average merit and bearing a closer resemblance to opéra-comqiue than to opéra-bouffe compositions, and in ‘La Fille de Mme. Angot’ he has enhanced the effect produced by a long series of vivacious and thoroughly harmonious numbers, by means of several tunes which everybody will mentally repeat, and to which everybody will dance for some months to come. The assemblage gathered at the Broadway Theatre, last night, derived evident pleasure from the whole score of the opera. There is not a dull page in ‘La Fille de Mme. Angot;’ but it lighted at once upon the ‘telling’ passages, and the repeats were neither few nor far between. The couplets in act the first, descriptive of the peculiarities of Mme. Angot, the burden of which is especially felicitous; the song at the close of the same act, in which the continual changes of government are ridiculed; the duet between Mlle. Lange and Pitou in the second act—a graceful and melodious number, and one removed by its form quite beyond the limits of ‘opera bouffe’—the very laughable chorus of conspirators, and a delicious vocal waltz, in the same portion of the work, were deemed exceptionally deserving of applause, and were nearly all redemanded. The remainder of the score we need not mention as supplying abundant proof of M. Lecocq’s happy faculty of treating rather vague subjects with so much skill as to make them appear quite definite and fascinating; and also as showing him to be capable of writing much bright and fluent music without even once descending to vulgarity. The representation of ‘La Fille de Mme. Angot’ we alluded to above was decidedly praiseworthy. We have never witnessed a smoother ‘first night,’ and could not wish one more spirited, after a protracted run. It is well-nigh needless to say that Mlle. Aimée was welcomed with genuine cordiality, and that, as Clairette, she acted and sang with immense vim and finish. Her voice, too was in admirable condition, and hence we hardly imagine that her performance could be improved upon. Mlle. Stani, a new artist, assumed the rôle of Mlle. Lange, and wrought a very agreeable impression, mainly by her efforts as a vocalist, which revealed her possession of tones rarely heard, save in a higher walk of the lyric drama. Mlle. Cantrelle personated intelligently Ameranthe, and delivered very neatly what we might call the key-song of the piece in act the first. The male characters were assigned respectively to MM. Juteau, Duchesne, Lécuyer, Deschamps, and Duplan. M. Juteau’s face and method are familiar to the frequenter of opera-bouffe entertainments, and his voice is as responsive to all demands as hitherto; he personated Pitou. M. Duchesne excited much laughter as Larivaudière; M. Lécuyer--a consummate actor—offered a very droll picture of an incroyable; M. Deschamps, a new tenor, with a still small voice, embodied Pomponnet, an amorous barber who finally marries Clairette; and M. Duplan presented a marvelous caricature of the police spy of the period. The chorus did its duty faithfully. The dresses in ‘La Fille de Mme. Angot’ are superb. Mr. Daly, we have to note, has set the opera very nicely in the matter of scenery. At the end of the recital yesterday, the artists were all summoned before the curtain.”

“The second of the theatres under Mr. Daly’s comprehensive management was opened last evening with Mlle. Aimée’s opera bouffe company. The theatre is now called the Broadway. There never was a poor house of amusement that had so much difficulty in getting fitted with a name as this one. It has had as many aliases as a convict, and changes its character as often almost as the actors it shelters do theirs. For the present, however, it is an opera house, and the rendezvous of all that is bright, sparkling, and wicked in the way of opera bouffe.

Mlle. Aimée begins the season with a new opera and, except in a few respects, her old company. Indeed, this did not need any special changes, for comprising, as it did, such capital artists as the lady herself and Messieurs Juteau, Duchesne, Lecuyer, Nardin, and others, it was fully competent to give in the most satisfactory manner operas of this character. The additions, however, have added considerably to its efficiency, and now it seems to be, in all respects, a first-class company—as good a one probably as we have ever had here or are likely to have.

Chief among the new comers is Mlle. Rosine Stani from the Folies Dramatiques. She is a great acquisition both as a singer and an actress. In person she is very attractive. Her voice is a mezzo soprano of good and pleasing quality, though not strong, and there are about her acting an abandon, and a talent for the expression of the full sweep of female audacity and deviltry almost as pronounced as that possessed by Mlle. Aimée herself. She made it her mark at once, and a good, broad and deep one it was.

The three gentlemen who have been added are MM. Deschamps, Duplan, and Benedick. M. Deschamps is a handsome young man with a light voice which he manages with great discretion and first-rate ability as an actor. The other gentlemen, particularly Mons. Duplan, are important accessions, both having a fine vein of humorous talent.

The new opera, ‘La Fille de Madame Angot,’ is from the pen of Charles Lecocq, whose music is familiar through several operas brought out in previous seasons, among them, ‘La Fleur de Thé’ and ‘Les Cents Vierges.’ The libretto has three authors, MM. Clairville, Siraudin, and Koenig. It is a little curious that there is so often a double or triple paternity to these opera bouffe librettos. It is barely possible that no one man cares to have [illegible] the credit of the indelicacy of the affair, and that three men together are bold enough to make it thrice as bad as one would dare to. Whatever the reason, the results in the case of ‘Les Cents Vierges’ and ‘La Fille de Madame Angot’ are plays witty and immoral enough to have been suggested by the étudiantes of the closerie des lilas, and written out by their admirers from the Quartier Latin.

The plot of this present libretto is so ingenious and complicated that we shall not undertake to recite it in any detail [synopsis follows, for the remainder of the paragraph].

The music is of a very taking character, not so fresh in ideas by any means as that of Offenbach, nor worked out with any great care, but there are four or five pieces that will certainly prove very popular, notably so two duets between Mlles. Aimée and Stani and a conspirators’ chorus, and a quintette with chorus in waltz time.

The opera is superbly mounted. The costumes are rich as well as grotesque, and the scenery is all that it should be. There is no doubt that it will prove an attractive opera. The third act and the fighting scene between Aimée and Stani are enough of themselves to insure that, but the acting is so uniformly good and the pervading indelicacy of the play so marked that the public will not tire of it for many a night to come.

The performance passed off without any hitch or drawback. It is a marked illustration of the thoroughness with which French dramatic artists prepare themselves for their work that the first performance of a piece is with them almost as faultless in detail as any that succeed.”

“The Broadway Theatre was opened again last evening under Mr. Daly’s management with the production of Charles Lecocq’s French opera ‘La Fille de Madame Angot.’ The cool weather was of course in the management’s favor, and this, with the desire to hear a new opera bouffe and to see Mlle. Aimée and the new members of the company, sufficed to fill every seat and make standing room in demand.

Of course no one expects to unravel the plot of an opera bouffe, and in the present case an effort in that direction would be a most certain failure. There is a young girl, Clairette, the daughter of a Madame Angot, but otherwise of uncertain parentage, who has been adopted by the market people; there is a barber in love with Clairette, Clairette is in love with a ballad singer, the ballad singer is in love with an actress, Mlle. Lange (Mlle. Stani), and the latter is as susceptible as most heroines of French opera are found to be. These people and several others the plot succeeds in bringing together in different stages of love and jealousy, and this makes up the story.

The music, while always lively and sprightly, as of course opera bouffe must be, will not be, to those who have heard the former compositions of Lecocq and Offenbach, in any way novel, nor do we think that it will afford as many ‘popular airs’ as most of its predecessors in the same line have done. A duet between Aimée and Stani when they talk over their boarding-school days together is the most pleasing number, rising, indeed, somewhat above the tone of bouffe music. The chorus of conspirators is very amusing, and a waltz movement and the ballad of Ange Pitou, sung by Clairette, will be popular.

The new members of the company were received with deserved favor, Mlle. Stani showing herself to be both actress and singer, and sharing with Mlle. Aimée the plaudits of the evening. The méchancetés of the piece are mostly suggestive, and as the translation of the libretto omits the few liberties taken by the composers, any one who does not understand French may see and hear without a shiver.

Of the dresses, scenery, etc., it is only necessary to say that they were prepared with the taste and elegance that always mark Mr. Daly’s management.” 

“The new opera bouffe, by Charles Lecocq, was sung at the Broadway theatre last night, for the first time in this country. Mlle. Aimée and her reconstructed company made their appearance before a large audience, and they and the new opera were very well received. The opera belongs to the school of comic opera rather than opera bouffe, though it is not lacking in some of the elements of the latter. Mlle. Lange is not a very instructive creation, and, dressed as the part is, according to the free ideas of the French revolution, it is far from being novel. Madame Angot, who is almost as mythical as Betsey Prig’s Mrs. Harris, is not a model of virtue, even among fishwomen. Clairette Angot is a stupid entity in the libretto, but a sprightly and rather mischievous bride, as represented by Mlle. Aimée. The story of the opera is a frail framework upon which to hang the music. Clairette, Angot’s daughter, is the child of the market, betrothed to Pomponnet, a barber, but in love with Ange Pitou, a ballad singer against the Directory—often in jail for his singing. He sings a song aimed at Mlle. Lange, an actress, and ‘the friend of Barras’ and Larivandiere one of her favorites. To prevent its repetition Larivandiere buys Pitou off, and, consequently, he is rich enough to marry Clairette. Unfortunately, it is her wedding day. To delay the marriage, Clairette sings the song herself, and as she is dragged off to prison the curtain falls on the first act. The second act takes place in the salon of Mlle. Lange…Mlle. Aimée sung the part of Clairette with much of her old fire, and particularly in Ange Pitou’s song she was greeted with great applause. Mlle. Stani, who personated Mlle. Lange, is a woman of more than ordinary beauty, but her musical powers are not remarkable. Mlle. Canirelle, as Amaranth, claims some attention, because she sings the aria of Mlle. Angot, the ‘beautiful fisherwomane.’ Her acting is not ineffective, but her voice is utterly without cultivation, and her singing is, like Mme. Angot,

Very pretty,

But not refined.

M. Juteau, as Ange Pitou, was very acceptable, the rôle being a light and easy one, well adapted to his powers. M. Deschamps, the tenor comique, took the part of Pomponnet. He has a pretty, because almost a girlish, face, and he must depend on it rather than on his voice for success. M. Duplan, who is also new to this city, appeared as Louchard, his ‘make-up’ of the police spy being more remarkable than his singing. M. Duchesne, as Laravandiere, does the little he has to do very well, and M. Lecuyer, as Trenitz, does the same with his part, but is a little too sprightly in his movements to be very funny. The arias and choruses are, many of them, very pretty, and the conspirators’ song in the second act especially has the elements of popularity. This song, or chorus as it may more properly be called, is after the true Offenbachian method, being at the same time both wild and subdued, grotesque and harmonious. It is the gem of the piece, and likely to insure its success here as in Paris. The opera is far from being what it was said to be—the equal of ‘La Grande Duchesse,’ and it is presented in this country by artists of mediocre merit; but both the opera and the company are, nevertheless, the best we have heard for some years.”

“Brief reference has been made, in this column, to the fact that the Broadway Theatre was opened, for the new season, on Monday evening. This house, it will be remarked, reverts to one of its former names--a title which we trust will this time stick. The visitor to the Broadway will find it the same clean and cheerful theatre that it was last season, when Mr. Daly refitted and occupied it as the New Fifth Avenue. The same restless and persevering manager still directs its fortunes; and he has reopened it with a popular form of entertainment, bright in character and pernicious in influence—the entertainment, namely, of Opera Bouffe. The particular specimen of French musical farce which he has offered is a new work, entitled ‘La Fille de Madame Angot,’ and this has served as a vehicle for the reentrance here of Mlle. Marie Aimée and the Opera Bouffe organization headed by that artist. ‘La Fille de Madame Angot’ is spoken of as having been a success in Paris and in other European cities. It should be remembered, in considering this fact, that success in those centers of old civilization means success within legitimate bounds; and that Opera Bouffe, no matter how sparkling it may happen to be, is not mistaken for Grand Opera, any more than a kitchen wench is mistaken for a duchess. Here there has been a tendency, from the first—that is, from the time when Mr. Bateman brought out Mlle. Tostée, at what is now Mr. Mansell’s Lyceum Theater, and so set the whirligig in motion—to give this melodious and licentious foolery an undue prominence. The contrast is not without its lesson. We will not, however, pause upon the moral, except to remark that perhaps at some future day intelligence as to these matters may so far prevail in this community that things in themselves trivial as well as mischievous will be shorn of half their power for harm by being relegated to their appropriate obscurity. ‘La Fille de Madame Angot’ is, comparatively speaking, an innocuous, though not an innocent, composition, of its class. The chief theme in its story—as in that of ‘The Hundred Virgins’—is an interrupted marriage. Its heroine, Clairette, Mrs. Angot’s daughter, is a piquant, ‘downy’ young woman, whose paternity is uncertain. She loves a Bohemian singer, who is clever, fickle, and vicious. She is betrothed to a barber, who is a good natured ass. She jilts the barber, and she is, in turn, jilted by the Bohemian—who loves, and is beloved by the mistress of a couple of French politicians. This latter female, we are told, is a favorite actress. It will be perceived that the company is choice. Falstaff, in the chaste retirement of Mr. Quickley’s inn, could scarcely have wished for better, and the immense impressiveness of these people, as objects for the contemplation of young gentlemen and their sweethearts in our day, will, of course, suggest itself to the most casual observer. One of the relations thus indicated a number of comic incidents—such as unexpected meetings, sudden and confusing discoveries, and bold and adroit schemes for concealment—are easily made to rise. To mention them in particular detail would be to waste labor and space. Invoices and catalogues are not lively reading, and the taste for the perusal of plots of plays is not one that, in general, we have time to address. A few pages of the City Directory, we should say, might serve to solace it. Enough, meantime, is said about this opera bouffe story to denote its character and drift, and the flavor of wanton levity that pervades it. There may, perhaps, for a French public, be some political significance in the tale; but, if so, we have failed to catch its point or recognize its force. The action is assumed to pass in Paris, in the year 1797, and a conspiracy against the French Directory is a part of the machinery of the plot. One result of this pretext, possibly, is ridicule of Government; but the best result of the choice of time, place, and circumstances is pretty costume. The French dresses of the period named were often really beautiful, and that element in the illustration of history has been furnished in perfection, on the stage of the Broadway Theater—just as the lovely Watteau style has been on the stage of the Olympic. A brilliant stage-setting in general, we may add, has been provided for ‘La Fille de Madame Angot,’ and in this respect its production has afforded a display that is fine, pleasing, and commendable. The music of the piece was written by Mr. Charles Lecocq, of whom, as a composer, it might be said that he resembles Offenbach—the great master in this line of art—very much as the odor of bergamot resembles the odor of the onion. His numbers are fluent, sweet, airy, sometimes plaintive, sometimes tumultuous, at all times pretty, but never—in this opera—either original in character or remarkable in adaptiveness or expression. The general quality of the music impresses us as rustic. It makes one think of sunny meadows, and new-mown hay, and great, sleepy barns with red doors, and those luxuriant, unpolished country girls who wear, in their bosoms, little paper packets of musk, and who don’t know how to spell. It has natural beauty, with little force or finish—like some of Bloomfield’s poetry, as compared with Thomson’s. The most popular melody seemed to be that of a particularly piquant duet, between Clairette and Lange—Mlle. Aimée and Mlle. Stani—in the second act; but there is nothing in the piece that will capture and keep the laborious whistling population, as certain of the melodies have done in the Grand Duchess and Helen the Beautiful. Clairette’s defiant song, of personal avowal and self-assertion—‘Vous avez fait de la depense pour me donner de l’innocence,’—is brisk and jaunty; and the choruses are gallant and stirring. If we add that the piece is never dull, we shall fill up the measure of such compliment as it deserves. Mlle. Marie Aimée and her company have given it a competent, and in some respects, a brilliant, interpretation. To the carnal, coquettish, Cressid-like feminine character that figures continually in Opera Bouffe—and is no less in this one than in its predecessors—Mlle. Aimée is always equal and seems eminently fitted. Seeing her in one specimen you see her in all. Nothing varies but the dress. The same assumption of demure ingenuousness, the same appearance of artless ignorance, the same prettiness, the same sudden gleams of mischievous intelligence, the same rapid transitions from a seeming unsophisticated Bucolic simplicity to the full and brazen effulgence of proficient and reckless sensualism—the same dangerous devilry, in short, appear in each of her personations and pervades them all. And this fact shows her to be an excellent opera bouffe artist—for this is the soul of opera bouffe, the spring of its vitality, the magnet of its attraction, the secret of its grasp, and the guarantee of its continuing influence. Of course Mlle. Aimée is a good singer, and—though not versatile—a good actress; but she might be better as both singer and actress and still fail in opera bouffe, were it not that she possesses the devilish magnetism that is essential to the art. We wish to be understood to refer to the lady as an artist. It appears to be necessary to ‘speak by the card.’ Sensibilities are understood to be wounded, in all directions, by remarks of ours upon the several forms of sensual and vicious entertainment that have lately arisen. ‘Woman impudent and mannish grown’ is woman, after all; and this may be a good time and place for us to say that we have not intended, in any instance, to go behind professional publicity or comment upon anything but what may be designated as the Naked Fact. It is no part of our purpose, however, to stultify our judgment by affecting not to know—or by assuming that these various spectacle, burlesque, and opera bouffe performers do not know—the true motive-spirit and intent of the business in which they are engaged. Their pursuits, as now conducted, are injurious both to the stage and the public, and they are perfectly well aware of the fact. They know too—and the truth is disgraceful to the community—that these pursuits are profitable, precisely in proportion as they are thought injurious. It is all very well to say that the pieces to which we refer are mere showpieces; that nothing is intended but a bit of fun; that there is no harm in foolery; and that serious considerations of such trivial subjects is a waste of thought. We were ourselves first deluded, through kindness and humanity, into this way of viewing the matter. But the more we see of it the more we are convinced that it is a rampant and malignant evil. There are such things as the hearts of mothers, which are broken, and the honorable gray heads of fathers, which are bowed down into the dust, with shame and grief, over the ruin of their boys and girls—produced or accelerated by the influences that flew out of these insidious forms of public amusement, and of the generally loose manner of thinking and feeling, with reference to them, that now prevails; and, in recognition of this fact—while entertaining no disposition to be unkind or uncharitable—we feel that there are other things for us to consider than the wounded feelings of artists, or the wounded pockets of theatrical managers. And we intend to consider them. [Illegible sentence]

Mlle. Aimée’s new opera bouffe company includes many old acquaintances and a few new ones. Mlle. Stani, chief among the latter, is an excellent singer, but not much of an actress, and there is no person in the troupe that rivals Mlle. Aimée herself. Toujours Napoleon! The cast of the ports in ‘La Fille de Madame Angot’ is as follows [see above]. 

First matinée performance. 

“Daly’s Broadway Theatre was opened for the regular season on the evening of Aug. 25, when the Aimée Opera Bouffe Company commenced an engagement, performing for the first time in America Chas. Lecocq’s latest opera entitled ‘La Fille de Madame Angot’ with the following cast [see above].

The opera was splendidly mounted, and the dresses were elegant. The music is sparkling and effective, and we think will become popular. The most taking melody was, apparently, a charming duet in the second act, sung by Clairette and Mlle. Lange. Among the other numbers that pleased may be mentioned some couplets in the first act describing the peculiarities of Mme. Angot, and a song, near the termination of that act, which ridicules the constant changes of government. The chorus of the conspirators in the second act was very funny. A vocal waltz also met with unqualified approval. As we recently published the plot of the opera, we need not further revert to it. Mlle. Aimée, who is an excellent singer and a good actress, invested Clairette with much sparkling vivacity, and sang the music with vim and spirit. Mlle. Rosina Stani, who made her American debut as Mlle. Lange, proved to be an artiste of great ability. Attractive in personal appearance and possessing a voice of much power and sweetness, she almost immediately achieved a marked success. Mlle. Cantrelle gave an effective impersonation of Amaranthe. Mons. Juteau, with whose artistic merits the public are already familiar, was seen to advantage as Pitou, although he used his falsetto tones rather too frequently. M. Duchesne was very comical as Larivaudiere, and kept the audience well amused. M. Lecuyer, who is an excellent actor, gave a humorous portraiture of an incroyable. Mons. Eugene Duplan, who made his American debut as Louchard, a police spy, was most eccentrically made-up, and his burlesque of that character was excellent. He is a decided acquisition to the company. Julien Deschamps, who likewise made his American debut as Pomponnet, who eventually marries Clairette, has a tenor voice of a light quality, although sweet in tone. The other characters were effectively rendered, and the chorus and orchestra performed their duties satisfactorily. In the third act Mlle. Marie Roland and Mons. Lecuyer, aided by the entire company, danced ‘La Fricassee,” a republican dance of 1797, which met with much favor. The attendance was very large on the opening night, but fell off on Tuesday, and again increased towards the end of the week. Mons. C. Van Ghele is the musical director of the troupe; Mons. C. Lecuyer the stage-manager, and Mons. Benedick the assistant stage-manager. George Devere is to be the acting-manager of the theatre during the season, and Mr. Morrisey the treasurer.”