La Camargo is a 3-act opéra comique with music by Charles Lecocq and words by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo. It is a highly fictionalised story of two historical 18th-century characters, the dancer La Camargo and the bandit Louis Mandrin.
The opera was first produced at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris in 1878, and ran for 98 performances.
Background
Lecocq had written four operas for the Théâtre de la Renaissance between 1875 and 1878. The most successful of these, Le petit duc, had run for 301 performances. La Camargo was commissioned to succeed it. Lecocq had worked with numerous librettists since his first big success, Fleur-de-Thé, ten years earlier. For the new piece his collaborators were the experienced team of Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo, with whom he had worked on the highly successful Giroflé-Girofla (1874), La petite mariée (1875) and the fairly successful La Marjolaine (1877).
The two main characters of Leterrier and Vanloo's libretto, La Camargo and Louis Mandrin, are fictionalised versions of real historical figures. The former was a popular star of the ballet in the reign of Louis XV, and the latter a notorious brigand. They lived at the same time, but there is no evidence that they ever met. La Camargo was played by Zulma Bouffar, a favourite with Parisian audiences, closely associated with the works of Offenbach, and her appearance in an opera by his younger rival was something of a coup for the Théâtre de la Renaissance; Lecocq dedicated the published score to her. La Camargo opened on 20 November 1878 and ran for 98 performances.
Original cast
Mandrin – Eugène Vauthier
Pontcalé – Jean-François Berthelier
Saturnin – M. Lary
Péruchot – M. Pacra
Tournevis – M. Libert
Le Philosophe – M. Deberg
Rossignol – M. Duchosal
Taquet – M. Tony
Camargo – Zulma Bouffar
Dona Juana de Rio Negro – Marie Desclauzas
Colombe – Mily-Meyer
Source: Vocal score.
Synopsis
Act 1
The green room of the Paris Opéra
The ballet company is assembled under the direction of the manager, Taquet, ready to go on stage in La Camargo's farewell performance before she leaves Paris for Lyons, where she is to fill an engagement. Her friends are joined by the robber Mandrin, who is elegantly costumed and passing himself off as a grandee, the Chevalier de Valjoly. Also present is La Camargo's admirer, the Marquis de Pontcalé, who has just made her a present of a magnificent necklace. Mandrin has come expecting to offer a similarly grand gift, but, to his annoyance, his men, whom he had told to steal something suitable, have not appeared.
Pontcalé, who prides himself on his detective ability, explains to everyone that he has been asked by the police authorities to help them track down and capture the notorious Mandrin, who is believed to be in Paris. The robber's identity has been established by a recent deed of criminal daring: the robbery of a château near St. Germain, occupied by a Spanish aristocrat, Juana de Rio Negro. She now enters, having been sent by the police to find Pontcalé and give him details of the robbery. She tells him, and all present, the details of the burglary but admits that she cannot distinguish between her dreams and the real events of that night – did the dashing intruder make love to her or not?
Once the green room is empty, Mandrin's men break in through a window, steal the necklace (Pontcalé's gift) from Camargo's dressing room, and meeting their chief, give it to him and depart. He does not realise that it has just been stolen from the dancer's room and he congratulates himself on finally having a magnificent present for her. Juana returns and, seeing the robber, recognises him as the man who stood at her bedside when she awoke from her puzzling dreams on the night of the robbery. She demands an explanation and he, by wily professions of love and hints that she alone may reform him, induces her to conceal his identity.