Le Chevalier Jean

An opera in four acts set to a libretto by Louis Gallet and Édouard Blau, Le Chevalier Jean was performed for the first time at the Opéra-Comique on 11 March 1885. When Chevalier Jean, a native of Lorraine, comes back from Palestine, he finds that his beloved, Hélène, is married to an old man called Arnold. The young woman had only agreed to this marriage to protect herself from the passionate advances of Rudolf, the provincial Palatine of Silesia who, when Arnold and Jean go off to war, seizes the opportunity to pursue Hélène again. Faced with her indifference, his love turns to hate and he wrongfully accuses the young woman of adultery in revenge for her coldness. Sentenced to prison, she will only be able to regain her freedom if a knight sets her free by fighting Rudolf. Jean, who has now become a monk, meets his former love again when she comes before him as a penitent. Convinced she is talking to a simple servant of the church, she begs him for pardon and confesses her love for Jean. Emboldened by this confession, Jean leaves his cloister and sets off to save his beloved. After defeating Rudolf, he is given the Emperor’s permission to break his vows. The press praised the musical variety of the work, which begins with a danced chorus full of gaiety and then explores a wide range of expressive registers: Hélène’s touching simplicity in the confession scene, Rudolf’s extravagant pride, Emperor Frédéric’s nobility. The critics also felt that the work contained a welcome reconciliation of the German, French and Italian aesthetics. After its Parisian premiere, the work was revised by Joncières, who transformed it into an entirely sung opera. It was performed for the first time in this version at the Théâtre in Nantes in February 1886, where it was also a resounding success. Translated into German under the title Johann von Lothringen, the opera was also a great hit in Germany.