La Laitière de Trianon is the twelfth volume of Opera Rara’s acclaimed Il Salotto series.
As with a previous issue in the Il Salotto series, which comprised Pauline Viardot’s delightful chamber operetta Cendrillon, this latest release focuses on a single work designed for intimate performance – J.B. Wekerlin’s ‘opérette de salon’ La Laitière de Trianon (The Milkmaid of Trianon). Just two singers take part in the piece, set at Versailles in 1775. A Countess (Joan Rodgers) and a Marquis (Yann Beuron) have been betrothed by their families, though they have never met. As a colonel in the army, Marquis de Brunoy is summoned to Versailles, though he confuses the military headquarters, Le Grand Trianon, with Le Petit Trianon, where Marie-Antoinette has established her model dairy. Here he meets a milkmaid (the Comtesse de Lucienne, in disguise) who takes his fancy. All possible misunderstandings ensue but are resolved by the end. The composer, Jean-Baptiste Wekerlin (1821–1910), was a pupil of Halévy who spent much of his career as a distinguished librarian and editor of early French operas, but his own stage compositions won success in their day, with L’organiste dans l’embarras clocking up more than 100 performances. None of them had a more auspicious launch, however, than La Laitière de Trianon, which made its debut at one of Rossini’s soirées musicales on 18 December 1858.
This disc is accompanied by a fully illustrated 76 page booklet with introduction and story to Laitière de Trianon by Jeremy Commons.
“Opera Rara’s exquisite salon music series” American Record Guide
