Music by Gaetano Donizetti

Libretto Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, Jean-François Bayard

The French comic opera La fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) has reigned in the world’s opera houses for almost two hundred years ever since its premiere in Paris, in 1840.

Donizetti seems to have written the opera in just a few weeks: “What I did well, I always did quickly; and I was often reproached for the very carelessness that cost me the most time.” The success of the La fille du régiment confirms this observation. The music of the opera is bursting with ostensible simplicity and carefree gaiety but all the same requires a veritable tour de force of voices, sometimes reminiscent of vocal pyrotechnics, and calls for extraordinary theatrical abilities of the two leading performers.

Director Jūratė Sodytė decided to change the period and locale of the action from the time of Napoleon’s Austrian Campaign (1805–1815) to the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).

The plot of this romantic comedy is enacted on stage of the Klaipėda State Music Theatre by the company’s best opera soloists and guest singers, members of the choir and ballet company.

 A comic opera in 2 acts. Performed in French with spoken dialogues in Lithuanian. Subtitles in Estonian and English.

Duration appr. 3 h (including one interval)

Photos: Martynas Aleksa