Le Pré aux clercs

Act One: 46 mins Interval: 30 mins. Act Two: 47 mins Interval: 20 mins Act Three: 25 mins. Total 2 hours 58 mins plus curtain call and overture.

Dress Code: Black Tie

Three women are at the heart of Hérold’s last and finest opéra comique (he died shortly after the triumphant premiere in December 1832), but because the year is 1572 they are little more than pawns in a male dominated society. Nicette is the exception, happy about her forthcoming marriage to Girot, hotelier from the Pré aux Clercs (‘the Clerks’ Meadow’), across the Seine from the Louvre Palace. Marguerite de Valois, godmother of Nicette, is the wife of King Henry of Navarre and the sister of the king of France, Henri III, but she is held in Paris as a virtual prisoner, a hostage to peace. A young countess, Isabelle, Marguerite’s lady-in-waiting, is in love with Baron de Mergy from Navarre and he with her, but Henri wishes her to marry Comte de Comminge. Marguerite is told that she may return to Navarre but Isabelle must marry Comminge. Marguerite helps Mergy and Isabelle to marry secretly. Mergy kills Comminge in a duel and escapes with Isabelle across the border to Navarre.

By the end of the nineteenth century Le Pré aux clercs had received more than 1,500 performances in Paris. Zampa (Wexford, 1993) and Le Pré aux clercs are regarded as Hérold's masterpieces, but at the premiere of Le Pré aux clercs in 1832 Hérold was too ill from tuberculosis to appear on the stage to enjoy his triumph and the wildly enthusiastic applause. He died five weeks later, aged forty-two.

Le Pré aux clercs was first performed at the Opéra-Comique (Salle de la Bourse), Paris on 15 December 1832. Libretto by François-Antoine-Eugène de Planard after Chronique du temps de Charles IX by Prosper Merimée.

Co-production with Opéra-Comique (Paris) and Palazzetto Bru Zane –Centre de musique romantique française (Venice)

Presented with the support of the Bravura Friends of Wexford Festival Opera

A short introductory talk will take place in the Jerome Hynes Theatre one hour before the performance.