La mascotte is an opéra comique

Opéra comique

Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...

 by Edmond Audran

Edmond Audran

Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful operettas, including Les noces d'Olivette , La mascotte , Gillette de Narbonne , La cigale et la fourmi , Miss Helyett , and La poupée .After Audran's initial success in Paris, his works also became a...

. The French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 libretto was by Alfred Duru and Henri Charles Chivot. The story concerns a farm girl who is believed to bring good luck to whoever possesses her, so long as she remains a virgin. The title (in English) initiated the use of the word 'mascot' in the English language to mean an animal, human, or thing which brought luck.

Performance history

It was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens

Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens

The Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens is a Parisian theatre which was founded in 1855 by the composer Jacques Offenbach for the performance of opéra bouffe and operetta. The current theatre is located in the 2nd arrondissement at 4 rue Monsigny with an entrance at the back at 65 Passage Choiseul. In...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 on 29 December 1880. It was very popular and 1,000 performances were given in just five years. It was revived at the Bouffes Parisiens in 1883 and 1889 and produced at other Paris theatres up until the 1930s and again in 1944; a film was made in 1935 with Germaine Roger, Lucien Baroux

Lucien Baroux

Lucien Baroux was a French actor. He began his career working in the theatre, moving on to a long career in films from the 1930s....

, Lestelly and Dranem

Dranem

Dranem was a French singer and music hall comique troupier and a stage and film actor.-History:Born Armand Ménard, in Paris, he began working as an apprentice jeweler in a local shop before embarking on a career in entertainment. Adopting the singular stage name of Dranem, an anagram of Menard, he...

.

It was translated into English and staged at Abbey

Henry Eugene Abbey

Henry Eugene Abbey was an American theatre manager and producer. During the 1870s - 1890s, he managed such prominent Broadway theatres as Booth's, Wallack's, and the Park Theatre, promoting the talents of some of the foremost American actors of his day, as well as European stars...

's Park Theatre in New York City on 5 May 1881, and in Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, England on 19 September the same year.

The Universal (Decca) Studios recording made in 1956 in Antony, France, conducted by Robert Benedetti, is available on CD.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 28 December 1880 (Conductor: Marius Baggers)
Bettina, the mascot	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Grisier-Montbazon
Fiametta, daughter of Laurent XVII	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Dinelli
Prince Fritellini, Fiametta's fiancé	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Charles Lamy
Pippo, a shepherd	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Louis Morlet
Laurent XVII, prince	baritone	Paul Hittemans
Rocco, a farmer	tenor	Raucourt
Parafante, sergeant	baritone	Pescheux
Mathéo, inn-keeper	bass	Desmonts
Peasants, lords and ladies of court, soldiers, etc.

Synopsis

Rocco, a 17th century farmer, is cursed by bad luck. To bring him good fortune, his brother invites Bettina, a country girl, to be Rocco's mascot, believing that she can bring good luck to whoever possesses her, so long as she remains a virgin. Pippo, Rocco's shepherd, falls in love with Bettina. Prince Laurent then invites Bettina to live at his castle. When the prince tries to force the maiden to marry him, Pippo helps Bettina to escape from the castle. Laurent is now cursed with bad luck, as he is overthrown and war breaks out. Pippo marries Bettina believing that their children will inherit her ability to bring good luck.

The title was French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

 derived from the Provençal

Provençal language

Provençal is a dialect of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence."Provençal" is also the...

term masco, meaning witch. The best-known number of its tuneful score is the Act 1 duet for Bettina and Pippo, in which she tells him, with appropriate farmyard noises, that she loves him just as much as her beloved turkeys.

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 30 July 2008
• The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
• Traubner, R. Operetta: a Theatrical History (1983) New York.

External links

• Vocal score in English, including plot synopsis