Le Comte D'ory (Count Ory)

by Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868). Opéra in two acts. 1828. Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, after a play by the same writers.
First performance at the Paris Opéra on 20th August 1828.

Set in 13th century France, the opera deals with the attempts of Count Ory to woo the Countess Adèle, whose brother is away on a crusade. She and her ladies have abjured love in his absence. Ory disguises himself as a hermit, deceiving even his tutor and his page, Isolier. The latter is also in love with the Countess and gains admission to the castle, with Ory, who warns the Countess against him, while absolving her from her vow, only to have his identity revealed by his tutor. In the second act Ory and his men, disguised as nuns, seek shelter from a storm in the castle, where they alternate their behaviour between emptying the wine-cellar and an appearance of prayer. Isolier tricks Ory into an assignation that he supposes is with the Countess, but is in fact also with his page, and he and his men make their escape as the husband of the Countess is heard returning.

The wit of Rossini is evident in his opera for the French theatre, a work that shows a complete mastery of the form and of the Paris stage. The score includes a fine trio in the scene between Ory, Isolier and Adèle in which the first is outwitted by the page, A la faveur de cette nuit obscure (Thanks to this dark night).