- Gaetano Donizetti. Opéra comique in two acts. 1840.
Revised for an Italian version in the same year.
- Libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François-Alfred Bayard.
- First performance by the Paris Opéra Comique at the Salle de la Bourse on 11th February 1840.
CHARACTERS
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| Marie, the so-called Daughter of the Regiment | soprano |
| Sulpice, French grenadier sergeant | bass |
| Tonio, a Tyrolean peasant | tenor |
| La Marquise de Berkenfeld | mezzo-soprano |
| Hortensius, her steward | bass |
| Corporal | bass |
| La Duchesse de Crackentorp | soprano |
| Peasant | tenor |
| Notary | speaking part |
| Valet | speaking part |
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Brought up by the regiment, after being found on a battle-field as a baby, Marie tells Sergeant
Sulpice of a young man who has saved her life. This is Tonio, who is found by the soldiers and now
joins the regiment. The Marquise de Berkenfeld, stranded by the war, seeks a safe-conduct, and it is
realised that papers found on Marie show her to be the niece of the Marquise. The discovery cannot
help her budding romance with Tonio, now qualified, by earlier rules, to marry her, since he has
joined the regiment. In the second act Marie, now in the castle of the Marquise, is to marry a
nobleman, but still hankers after Tonio, promoted captain. Her match with him is eventually
sanctioned by the Marquise, in fact her mother, after Marie has scandalized society by an account of
her life with the regiment.
Excerpts from the opera heard in the concert-hall must include the overture, not least in
arrangements for brass band, the vigorous regimental song Chacun le sait (Each one knows it),
Tonio's Ah, mes amis (Ah, my friends) after joining the regiment and Marie's farewell to the
soldiery, Il faut partir (I must go). The work, once neglected, is now an established part of
international repertoire.
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