Mireille

In 1854, Frédéric Mistral and Joseph Roumanille founded a regional association, the Félibrige, to promote the Provençal language (langue d’oc) and literary heritage, in particular that of the troubadours. Five years later, Mistral composed Mirèio, an ambitious epic poem in twelve cantos with six thousand lines inspired by the Aeneid, which won the author the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. it was this Provençal masterpiece that formed the basis for the libretto written by Michel Carré for Charles Gounod’s five-act opera, Mireille. After reading Mirèio, an impressed Gounod asked Mistral for permission to adapt it for the opera stage. The composer wrote his score in a matter of months in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he immersed himself in the Provençal landscapes, composing as he walked, notebook in hand. Premiered on 19 March 1864 at the Théâtre-Lyrique, the work received mixed reactions from audience and critics alike. In particular, Gounod was criticised for the overly traditional nature of the music, which was Mozartian in inspiration and largely reminiscent of Don Giovanni. Here and there, the composer mined a more fanciful vein which was not dissimilar to Mendelssohn or Weber, particularly in Act 3. The critics also highlighted the work’s lack of dramatic direction, immediately apparent from the overture, which stands alone from the rest of the opera, as in Le Médecin malgré lui. The lukewarm reception of the work’s premiere led to numerous revisions for subsequent performances, such as recitatives being substituted for the spoken dialogue in order to increase the continuity of discourse. In 1939, the composer Henri Büsser staged a “restored” production of Mireille, after removing some of these corrections, and this is now regarded as the definitive version.