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Cendrillon longs to attend the prince’s ball; the Fairy Godmother prepares her, warning that the magic ends at midnight. She meets and falls in love with the prince, then flees at midnight. Later, the Fairies bring them together under an enchanted oak, and after the prince recognizes her among the princesses trying on the glass slipper, they are reunited.
After receiving his military commission, Chérubin flirts with the Countess and Spanish dancer L’Ensoleillad while his maid Nina loves him. A love letter nearly gets him killed. At an inn, he seduces L’Ensoleillad and serenades her, but the Countess and Baroness each think the song is for her, provoking duels with their husbands. Chérubin clarifies the misunderstanding; when Nina plans to enter a convent, he realizes he truly loves her and persuades her to stay.
Cyrano loves his cousin Roxane but believes his appearance rules out her love. When she falls for the handsome Christian, Cyrano supplies the eloquent letters and words that win her, while Christian gives Cyrano the chance to protect her at the siege of Arras. Christian dies in battle, and years later Roxane realizes that Cyrano wrote the letters; he dies after finally revealing his love.
Don Quichotte sets out with Sancho Panza to recover a pearl necklace stolen from Dulcinée by a bandit chief. After mistaking windmills for giants and winning the bandits’ respect, he returns the necklace, but Dulcinée declines his proposal of marriage. As he dies, he gives Sancho an imagined island as his reward.
Henry Février’s three-act French grand opera adapts Victorien Sardou’s 1894 play Gismonda. It premiered in Chicago with Mary Garden in the title role before its Paris staging later in 1919.
Napoleon II, the Duke of Reichstadt, escapes Austrian imprisonment with his faithful footman Séraphin Flambeau and visits the former battlefield at Wagram. He eventually dies of tuberculosis.
Anita offers to assassinate an enemy commander to earn the dowry demanded by her beloved Araquil’s father. She succeeds, but Araquil dies before learning why she went to the enemy camp; on discovering the truth, he dies, and Anita loses her sanity.
At his daughter’s wedding, innkeeper Mathias hears sleigh bells that recall a Polish Jew he murdered 15 years earlier. In a dream, he is tried for the murder and confesses the attack and disposal of the body. He dies of a heart attack.
After the Battle of Cannae, Fausta allows the sacred fire at the Temple of Vesta to go out. Facing the punishment of being buried alive, she returns to Rome to accept her fate. Her blind grandmother Posthumia gives her Fabius’s dagger, but when the executioners bind Fausta’s hands, Posthumia kills her to spare her the burial and atone for the sacrilege.
Fanny Legrand, known as Sapho, begins a relationship with the young Jean Gaussin. Jean learns about Fanny’s past, including a child from an earlier relationship, and leaves her. After Jean returns to his family, Fanny visits but departs alone; later, when he returns to their former home and offers to sacrifice his prospects for her, she quietly leaves while he sleeps.
Cendrillon longs to attend the prince’s ball; the Fairy Godmother prepares her, warning that the magic ends at midnight. She meets and falls in love with the prince, then flees at midnight. Later, the Fairies bring them together under an enchanted oak, and after the prince recognizes her among the princesses trying on the glass slipper, they are reunited.
After receiving his military commission, Chérubin flirts with the Countess and Spanish dancer L’Ensoleillad while his maid Nina loves him. A love letter nearly gets him killed. At an inn, he seduces L’Ensoleillad and serenades her, but the Countess and Baroness each think the song is for her, provoking duels with their husbands. Chérubin clarifies the misunderstanding; when Nina plans to enter a convent, he realizes he truly loves her and persuades her to stay.
Cyrano loves his cousin Roxane but believes his appearance rules out her love. When she falls for the handsome Christian, Cyrano supplies the eloquent letters and words that win her, while Christian gives Cyrano the chance to protect her at the siege of Arras. Christian dies in battle, and years later Roxane realizes that Cyrano wrote the letters; he dies after finally revealing his love.
Don Quichotte sets out with Sancho Panza to recover a pearl necklace stolen from Dulcinée by a bandit chief. After mistaking windmills for giants and winning the bandits’ respect, he returns the necklace, but Dulcinée declines his proposal of marriage. As he dies, he gives Sancho an imagined island as his reward.
Henry Février’s three-act French grand opera adapts Victorien Sardou’s 1894 play Gismonda. It premiered in Chicago with Mary Garden in the title role before its Paris staging later in 1919.
Napoleon II, the Duke of Reichstadt, escapes Austrian imprisonment with his faithful footman Séraphin Flambeau and visits the former battlefield at Wagram. He eventually dies of tuberculosis.
Anita offers to assassinate an enemy commander to earn the dowry demanded by her beloved Araquil’s father. She succeeds, but Araquil dies before learning why she went to the enemy camp; on discovering the truth, he dies, and Anita loses her sanity.
At his daughter’s wedding, innkeeper Mathias hears sleigh bells that recall a Polish Jew he murdered 15 years earlier. In a dream, he is tried for the murder and confesses the attack and disposal of the body. He dies of a heart attack.
After the Battle of Cannae, Fausta allows the sacred fire at the Temple of Vesta to go out. Facing the punishment of being buried alive, she returns to Rome to accept her fate. Her blind grandmother Posthumia gives her Fabius’s dagger, but when the executioners bind Fausta’s hands, Posthumia kills her to spare her the burial and atone for the sacrilege.
Fanny Legrand, known as Sapho, begins a relationship with the young Jean Gaussin. Jean learns about Fanny’s past, including a child from an earlier relationship, and leaves her. After Jean returns to his family, Fanny visits but departs alone; later, when he returns to their former home and offers to sacrifice his prospects for her, she quietly leaves while he sleeps.