About the work
Les chevaliers de la table ronde is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Hervé with a libretto by Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru. It premiered on 17 November 1866 at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris.
Plot
Rather than retelling the familiar Arthurian tale of Lancelot and Merlin, the work invents a freely imagined, enchanted medieval world with four grotesquely drawn knights and the female characters Mélusine, Totoche and Angélique, who parody the idyll of chivalry.
Cultural significance
The piece was Hervé's first major operetta and opened a four-work cycle with L'Œil crevé, Chilpéric and Le petit Faust, composed ambitiously enough to rival productions at the Opéra-Comique.