Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (1836-1891) was a French composer best known for his ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), as well as the opera Lakmé (1883). While the opera is still performed in France, it is rarely done outside its native country. The Met has performed the work 63 times, but its last staging was in 1947.
The opera contains orientalist themes that were popular at the end of the 19th century, but which have fallen out of favor as tastes have evolved. The libretto is based on Théodore Pavie’s story “Les babouches du Brahmane” and Pierre Loti’s novel Le Mariage de Loti. Following its premiere at the Opéra-Comique in 1883, Lakmé reached its 500th performance there on 23 June 1909 and its 1,000th on 13 May 1931.
The opera includes the popular “Flower Duet” (“Sous le dôme épais”) for a soprano and mezzo-soprano, performed in act 1 by Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika. The opera’s most famous aria is the “Bell Song” (“L’Air des clochettes”) in act 2.
The famous duet is performed in the video below by sopranos Nadine Sierra and Pretty Yende. It’s in Act 1.
Also, in Act 1 is the tenor aria ‘Prendre le dessin d’un bijou’. It’s sung by Gérald, a British officer. The locale is India during the Raj. The two culturally distant characters, of course, fall in love, much to the displeasure of Lakmé’s father, Nilakantha. The tenor is Juan Diego Flórez.
At a busy bazaar, Nilakantha forces Lakmé to sing (the “Bell Song”) to lure her unidentified admirer into revealing himself. When Gérald steps forward, Lakmé faints, thus giving him away. Nilakantha stabs Gérald, wounding him. Lakmé takes Gérald to a secret hideout in the forest, where she nurses him back to health. Joan Sutherland is the soprano in the video below.
In the forest (Act 3), Lakmé and Gérald hear singing in the distance. Gérald is frightened, but Lakme tells him that the singers are a group of lovers who seek out the water of a magical spring. When drunk, the water grants eternal love to the couple. While Lakmé fetches water that will confirm the vows of the lovers, Fréderic, Gérald’s fellow British officer, appears and reminds him of his military duty to his regiment. Gérald sadly accepts that his colleague is correct. After Lakmé returns, she senses the change in Gérald and realises that she has lost him. Rather than live with dishonor, she tears a leaf from a poisonous datura tree and bites into it. She tells Gérald what she has just done, and they drink the water together. Nilakantha finds their hut and enters as Lakmé is dying. She tells her father that she and Gérald drank from the magical spring. In that instant, she dies.
Natalie Dessay is joined by Gregory Kunde and José Van Dam in the opera’s finale. While a species of musical theater no longer in favor, the work has a certain artificial charm that will not let it totally vanish.
