About the work
Aucassin et Nicolette, ou Les mœurs du bon vieux tems is a comédie mise en musique by André Grétry to a libretto by Michel-Jean Sedaine, based on a modernised retelling by the medievalist La Curne de Sainte-Palaye of the Old French chantefable “Aucassin et Nicolette.” It premiered before the court at Versailles on 30 December 1779, followed by the Paris premiere on 3 January 1780.
Plot
The lovers Aucassin and Nicolette are separated and held in prison cells. Nicolette escapes using a rope ladder into the nearby forest, where sympathetic guards let her go. Aucassin, ready to die rather than submit, eventually learns the truth about Nicolette’s noble birth, clearing the way for their marriage.
Cultural significance
With the subtitle “Les mœurs du bon vieux tems” (the manners of the good old days), Sedaine drew on the late-18th-century vogue for medieval subjects. In 1782 the originally four-act work was revived in a version cut to three acts.