12th Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane Paris

L’Arlésienne
& le Docteur Miracle

L’Arlésienne: a musical tale by Georges Bizet for narrator, vocal ensemble and orchestra, after Alphonse Daudet’s drama of the same name. Text by Hervé Lacombe.

Le Docteur Miracle: a one-act opéra-comique by Georges Bizet, libretto by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, first performed at the Bouffes-Parisiens on 9 April 1857.
Symphonic Music Operetta Théâtre du Châtelet
© Thomas Amouroux
L’Arlésienne began as a short story by Alphonse Daudet, published in the daily newspaper L’Événement in August 1866, and later included in his Lettres de mon moulin (1869). It was inspired by the suicide of a nephew of the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral as a consequence of unrequited love. Daudet himself adapted the story for the stage: it became a play in three acts and five tableaux, with incidental music by Bizet. Hervé Lacombe has now created a text, spoken by a narrator, telling the story of L’Arlésienne more concisely, while enabling us to hear the full score of the work for chorus and orchestra.

Le Docteur Miracle was written for an opera competition organised in 1856 by Jacques Offenbach. Candidates were to set the one-act libretto of Le Docteur Miracle. Georges Bizet, aged barely twenty, was awarded first prize jointly with Charles Lecocq. Rather surprising in Bizet’s operatic career, this one-act farce reveals his comic talent.

Dates

Sat 24 May 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Mon 26 May 2025
14.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Mon 26 May 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Tue 27 May 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Thu 29 May 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Fri 30 May 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Sun 1 June 2025
15.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
Tue 3 June 2025
20.00
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris

Performers

ORCHESTRE DE CHAMBRE DE PARIS
Sora Elisabeth conductor

Pierre Lebon stage director, set and costume designer
Garance Coquart assistant stage director
Bertand Killy lights

Laurette Dima Bawab
Véronique Heloïse Mas
Le Capitaine Silvio Marc Mauillon
Le Podestat Thomas Dolié
Balthazar Eddie Chignara
L’Assistant du Docteur Miracle / L’Innocent Pierre Lebon
Mitifio / Frédéri Aurélien Bednarek
Rose / Vivette Iris Florentiny
Staged version
Co-production Opéra de Tours / Théâtre du Châtelet / Opéra de Rouen Normandie / Bru Zane France / Orchestre de chambre de Paris / Opéra de Lausanne (for Le Docteur Miracle)
Delegated production Bru Zane France
Sets made by the workshops of the Opéra de Tours
Costumes made by the workshops of the Opéra de Tours and the Opéra de Rouen Normandie
L’Arlésienne: score published by Choudens
Le Docteur Miracle: score published by Hugh MacDonald © Fishergate Music
Bru Zane Mediabase
Digital resources for French Romantic music
Georges Bizet