About the work
Le comte Ory is a comic opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, based on their own 1817 vaudeville of the same name. It premiered on 20 August 1828 at the Paris Opéra (Salle Le Peletier); it was Rossini's penultimate opera.
Plot
While the local men are away on crusade, Count Ory tries to seduce the lonely Countess of Formoutiers, first disguised as a hermit, then, smuggled into her castle, as a female pilgrim. His page Isolier, himself in love with the Countess, repeatedly thwarts his schemes; when Ory mistakenly embraces Isolier instead of the Countess in the dark, the returning crusaders arrive and put an end to his plan.
Cultural significance
For the score, Rossini reused large portions of the music from Il viaggio a Reims, the occasional opera he had written for the coronation of Charles X. Le comte Ory is regarded as a high point of French comic opera before Offenbach and a model for the elegant combination of ensemble writing and situational comedy.