About the work
La Navarraise is an opera in two acts by Jules Massenet, premiered in 1894 in London. The verismo work is set during the Third Carlist War in Spain and is regarded as Massenet's answer to the Italian verismo of Mascagni and Leoncavallo.
Plot
The young Anita loves the soldier Araquil, but his father demands a dowry she cannot raise. To earn the money, Anita accepts the bounty placed on the death of the enemy general Zuccaraga and murders him in the night. She returns with the blood money, but Araquil, mortally wounded and horrified by her deed, dies — and Anita descends into madness.
Cultural significance
La Navarraise is Massenet's shortest and most brutal stage work and his most direct contribution to verismo. Its condensed drama and the title role, created for Emma Calvé, made the work an international success of the 1890s.