Mam'zelle Nitouche

 A jolly little operetta

“Holy Nitouche, oh my patron, if you save me, my little Madonna, I’ll be glad to promise that I’ll do better, if God allows it… "

This vaudeville-opérette is an extremely witty, rich theatrical piece featuring the confrontation of three different worlds (even in a musical sense): a monastery, a theatre and a barracks. The titular heroine, a young nun, is having a lot of fun in this tongue-in-cheek religious environment, and so is her singing tutor, the honourable monastery organist, Célestin. It is said that the composer partly based this character on himself. Florimond Ronger (1825 – 1892) also started off as an organist, and also had to write his first operettas under a pseudonym. Célestin also uses the nom de plume of Floridor. Hervé has the right to create an operetta about a composer of operettas more than anyone else, as it was he that composed the very first operetta, even before Offenbach, and it was also he who opened the first theatre for operetta.

Mam´zelle Nitouche had its world premiere at the Théatre des Variétés in Paris, 11. 1. 1883. It was not long before even Czech audiences (National Theatre in Prague, 1890) and Moravians (The Old Theatre on Veveří, 1892) had the chance to get to know this work.