About the work
Totos Schloss (Le château à Toto) is a three-act opéra bouffe by Jacques Offenbach to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Offenbach began composing it in January 1868 while recuperating in Nice, and it premiered on 6 May 1868 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
Plot
The indebted Count Hector, known as Toto, the last of the La Roche-Trompette family, must auction off his Normandy château. His feuding neighbour, Baron de Crécy-Crécy, hopes the sale will settle a centuries-old family quarrel, while his daughter Jeanne, secretly in love with Toto, arranges through a stand-in buyer to win the auction in his favour.
Cultural significance
The work followed Offenbach's success with Pariser Leben but fared far worse at the box office: after only fifteen well-attended performances and a new production mounted in July 1868, it closed later that same month.