About the work
Le val d'Andorre is a three-act opéra comique by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. It premiered on 11 November 1848 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris (Salle Favart).
Plot
The young hunter Stéphan is desired by three women: the servant Rose-de-Mai, the widow Thérèse and the wealthy Georgette. When Stéphan is conscripted and attempts to desert, he faces a death sentence. Rose steals money to ransom him, and in the finale she is revealed to be Thérèse's long-lost daughter – a revelation that saves Stéphan and clears the way for his marriage to Rose.
Cultural significance
With 165 performances, the opera became one of the Opéra-Comique's greatest successes and restored its then-precarious finances; a reviewer for the Revue et gazette musicale called it the most brilliant total success ever recorded at that house. The work soon travelled abroad too, staged in German translation in Leipzig and, in 1850, in London, where Queen Victoria attended a performance.