Philémon et Baucis  

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Philémon et Baucis (Philemon and Baucis) is an opera in three acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The opera is based on the tale of Baucis and Philemon as told by La Fontaine (derived in turn from Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VIII). The piece was intended to capitalize on the vogue for mythological comedy started by Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, but Philémon et Baucis is less satirically biting and more sentimental.

Originally intended as a two-act piece for the music festival at Baden-Baden, it was instead first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, on 18 February 1860 because of the political situation in 1859. The new version added a middle act with chorus depicting Jupiter's destruction of the impious neighbours (by fire instead of flood) .


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Philémon et Baucis" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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