Charles Gounod, La colombe (1860)

Gounod: we all like him!  As a result, we watch operas that he wrote.  OR DO WE?!  Well, some of us do.  And in so doing, we discover how essentially arbitrary it is that only Faust and Roméo et Juliette are in the common repertoire.

So there's this guy named Horace who used to be rich but spent all his money in vain pursuit of the Countess Sylvie.  Now he lives a penurious existence in the country with his manservant Mazet, and his super-intelligent dove (colombe), which he has also named Sylvie.  A guy named Maître Jean shows up to buy the bird on behalf of his master, but Horace ain't selling.  We learn that Jean's master is actually his mistress, Sylvie herself, who wants the bird because she has a social rival, Aminte, who has a really awesome parrot, and she feels she needs a bird of her own to compete (?).  She shows up in person at Horace's place, and it become apparent that he's still carrying a torch for her.  She thinks she can manipulate him into giving her the dove, but she also starts to admit that maybe he's a good guy and she treated him badly.  She's going to stay for dinner, but being poor now, Horace has no fowl to give her, and hs doesn't want to just make beans.  So he makes the ultimate sacrifice: cook Sylvie the dove.  During the meal, she reveals why she's here, and he reveals, whoops, dove cooked.  This makes her understand the depth of devotion and accept him.  As the coup de grâce, Mazet reveals that actually, Sylvie the dove is fine; they found another bird to cook instead at the last minute--which happened to be Aminte's parrot.  Pwned!

I don't know; maybe this Aminte is a very unpleasant person, but still, it seems unfair for the parrot to have to suffer.  That notwithstanding, this is a very likable piece: a light plot, clearly, but charming, and with some great music, as why wouldn't there be?

There are two productions online to choose from, but I went with this one, said to be the opera's Israeli debut.  I can buy it.  It's very nice, with the orchestra on one side of the stage and the singers on the other, with just some furniture and whatnot as scenery.  The production does one interesting thing: while Mazet is a trouser role, here he's just a she, and her interactions with Maître Jean are highly flirtatious--in fact, in spite of the fact that obviously none of this is specified by the libretto (though some of the spoken text is massaged a bit to take it into account), I'd say they have better chemistry than the "real" couple.

Gounod!