Le Postillon de Lonjumeau

On the day of his marriage with a young innkeeper from Lonjumeau, coachman Chapelou is spotted by the director of the Opéra who hires him as a soloist and takes him to Paris. But Madeleine wants to recover her husband.

Is it a story about social advancement under the Ancien Régime? Or a cheerful tribute by the industrial nineteenth century to the gallant eighteenth? Or else the adventure of a seducer caught out at his own game? It’s all that and much more. It’s the triumph of singing: Chapelou and his aria with its decisive high D, Madeleine with her stunning vocal metamorphoses.

Adolphe Adam’s mythical work is back at the Opéra Comique where it was first performed. It enduringly inflamed Europe but has not been shown in our house since 1894.

We needed Michael Spyres’s talent and humor to embody this conceited and attractive hero, Sébastien Rouland’s drive to display the score written by the master of Romantic ballet, and Michel Fau’s subtlety to do justice – after Ciboulette – to all the facets of this dazzling comedy.

Opéra in French, subtitles in French and in English