La bonne d'enfant (The Nanny) is an opérette-bouffe (or operetta), in one act by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Eugène Bercioux.
It was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, Paris on 14 October 1856. Offenbach's early operettas were small-scale one-act works, since the law in France limited musical theatre works (other than grand opera) to one-act pieces with no more than three singers and, perhaps, some mute characters...
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La bonne d'enfant (The Nanny) is an opérette-bouffe (or operetta), in one act by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Eugène Bercioux.
It was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, Paris on 14 October 1856. Offenbach's early operettas were small-scale one-act works, since the law in France limited musical theatre works (other than grand opera) to one-act pieces with no more than three singers and, perhaps, some mute characters. In 1858, this law was changed, and Offenbach was able to offer full-length operettas, beginning with Orpheus in the Underworld.
Dorothée is tired of being a nanny and wants to marry to become the mistress of her own house. She has two suitors: Mitouflard, the fireman and Farfouilla, the chimneysweep. During an evening when her employers are out of the house, both gentlemen try to convince her to marry them, which leads to a number of comic situations. She ends up deciding to marry the trumpeter of the Royal Dragoons, but tells her suitors...
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