Mireille

by Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893).
Libretto by Michel Carré, after Frédéric Mistral's Provençal poem Mirèio. First performance at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, on 19th March 1864.

In a lyrical opera, set in Mistral's Provence and dominated dramatically and vocally by Mireille, the Chanson de Magali (Song of Magali), La brise est douce (The breeze is gentle) that she sings in happiness with Vincent is the best known. From the first act comes her waltz-song O légère hirondelle (O graceful swallow), while Vincent, as the work draws to a close, prays for Mireille in Anges du paradis (Angels of Paradise).

In a mulberry orchard, where girls are picking leaves, Taven, a sorceress, tells their futures, some to meet sadness in love. Clémence is confident that she will marry a handsome prince, but Mireille would be happy with much less, since she is in love with Vincent, who now enters, reciprocating her admiration. At the entrance to the bull-ring in Arles the people dance a farandole and Mireille and Vincent sing a love-song. Taven warns Mireille of other suitors and she is approached by and rejects the bull-tender Ourrias. Her father forbids any relationship with Vincent, to the anger of Vincent's father. At Taven's cave Ourrias seeks revenge on Vincent, striking and wounding him when he appears, only to be cursed by Taven and in the following ghostly scene to drown in the Rhône. Mireille is sad, while her father and his men celebrate midsummer eve, and resolves, when she hears of Vincent's fate, to travel to the shrine of the Saintes-Maries. This she does through the heat and thirst of the Crau desert. At the shrine Vincent comes to her, but she dies in his arms, to be welcomed in Heaven.