Madame Pompadour (Operetta)
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| Title: | Madame Pompadour |
| Original title: | Madame Pompadour |
| Shape: | operetta |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Leo case |
| Libretto : | Rudolf Schanzer and Ernst Welisch |
| Premiere: | September 9, 1922 |
| Place of premiere: | Berlin theater |
| Place and time of the action: | Paris, mid-18th century |
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Madame Pompadour is a three-act operetta by Leo Fall . The libretto was written by Rudolph Schanzer and Ernst Welisch . It premiered on September 9, 1922 at the Berlin Theater with Fritzi Massary in the title role.
orchestra
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a harp, percussion and strings
action
first act
In the inn "Zum Musenstall"
Madame Pompadour is the mistress of Louis XV. She has the reputation of not only being the most beautiful woman in France, but also finding many men desirable and having sex with them. In any case, the citizens of Paris are not well disposed towards it. They literally thirst for the mocking verses that the poet Calicot now fires at them every evening during the carnival time in the “muse stable”.
Because the Pompadour was bored at a court ball, she and her maid Belotte went secretly and went to the “musenstall”, well disguised. There should always be a great atmosphere here and an amorous adventure should be welcome. What neither of them know, however: Police Minister Maurepas is also present today. He had followed the two and hopes to catch the Pompadour he hated here in a precarious situation in order to be able to denigrate her to the king.
Count René, a friend of the poet Calicot, is also present in the “Musenstall”. He, too, is out for a gallant adventure in the carnival. With these two the pompadour and belotte get into conversation. All four seem to understand each other perfectly. When the Pompadour discovered her envious Maurepas, she suspected what he was doing here and tricked him. She explains that she is here on a business mission to uncover a conspiracy. So, of course, Maurepas cannot harm her. He disappears, but immediately returns with a small police force. The marquise points to Calicot and René, and Maurepas immediately arrests these "conspirators". At first, the two react horrified, but when they find out the sentence, they are only amazed: Calicot is supposed to write a festival for the royal court theater and René is ordered to act as the bodyguard of the Pompadour, which is not inconvenient for him.
Second act
Hall in the Palace of the Pompadour
René's wife Madeleine visits the Pompadour with the help of a letter of recommendation from her father and is desperate that her husband has disappeared without a trace for a few days. From the letter, the marquise recognizes that Madeleine is her half-sister and assures her that she will help. But she doesn't yet know that René is her brother-in-law.
Police Minister Maurepas has not been idle either. He has not yet given up his goal of exposing a pompadour lover. Now he believes that he has found the right man in Calicot, which he immediately reports to his king. After he prophesied a bad end for Calicot, Calicot is faced with fear. Desperately he asks Madame not to lead him into an amorous temptation, but the latter immediately makes friends with the idea of pretending to do something like that to trick Maurepas. René sends her to her bedroom and promises to follow him soon. But first she meets Madeleine again, who shows her a medallion with the portrait of her husband. Now the Pompadour realizes that René is her brother-in-law and that her plan to initiate a fight with him is doomed to failure.
Completely unexpectedly, the king enters the bedroom and discovers René, whom he takes to be Calicot, as his police minister has reported. He orders his arrest and execution within an hour. He accuses his mistress of infidelity, whereupon she replies that she will no longer help him with his hated state affairs in the future. She orders her staff to carry a chest full of files into the king's study. Let him see for himself whether and how he can cope with it. But she does not know that the fearful Calicot fled into the chest when he heard the king approaching.
Third act
King's study
The king signs the death warrant, in the name of Calicot, of course. Suddenly the lid of the chest of files opens and Calicot climbs out. Astonishment spreads when his identity is revealed. The king quickly realizes that he who he thought was the lover cannot be. The Pompadour has once again been able to shake off all suspicions. René introduces her as her brother-in-law and explains that he only wanted to change in her bedroom. The king is lenient and even asks his mistress to forgive him for wrongly suspecting her. In order to make her conciliatory, he even appoints her duchess.
Madeleine is happy to be able to hug her husband again, and Calicot is flirting with Belotte again. He can also expect unexpected luck: He receives a princely fee for a festival that he did not write at all.
music
"The Pompadour" is Leo Fall's third from last stage work and at the same time his most successful. Lively, catchy melodies alternate with delicate, soulful dabs. In a good production, which especially works out the satirical moments, the spark will quickly jump from the stage to the audience.
The most famous musical numbers are:
- The pom, the pom, the pompadour is a lovely ha-ha-ha
- My princess you, I know a secret street
- I am your subject, your faithful; I'm going through hellfire for you
- Joseph, oh Joseph, what are you so chaste?
- Today someone can make their fortune with me