About the work
Fortunios Lied (original title La chanson de Fortunio) is a one-act operetta by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy based on Alfred de Musset's play 'Le Chandelier'. It premiered on 5 January 1861 at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens (Salle Choiseul) in Paris.
Plot
As a young clerk, old notary Fortunio once won his employer's wife with a seductive song. Now married himself to young Laurette, he suspects an affair with his timid assistant Valentin. When the clerks rediscover and perform the old song, it works its charm again, to the detriment of the suspicious Fortunio himself.
Cultural significance
Offenbach had originally composed the song's melody in 1850 for a Comédie-Française revival of Musset's play and published it in 1853 in his collection 'Les Voix mystérieuses', before it became the basis of this one-act operetta.