About the work
Musical drama in four acts by Gustave Charpentier, who also wrote the libretto between 1889 and 1896 (with contributions by the poet Saint-Pol-Roux); first performed on 2 February 1900 at the Salle Favart of the Opéra-Comique in Paris under André Messager.
Plot
The young seamstress Louise loves the bohemian Julien but is pressed by her parents to marry another man. She elopes with Julien to the artists' quarter of Montmartre, but returns home when her father falls seriously ill. When her parents then forbid her to go back to Julien, she leaves the family home for good, while her father blames Paris itself for taking his daughter from him.
Cultural significance
With its Parisian working-class setting and its free-love counter-model to bourgeois convention, Louise is considered a key work of musical naturalism in France and a counterpart to Italian verismo. The opera became a box-office triumph at the Opéra-Comique, reaching 100 performances within its first season and more than 500 by 1921.