Le testament de la tante Caroline
Le testament de la tante Caroline is an opéra bouffe or operetta by composer Albert Roussel and librettist Nino. The original production was in Czech and in three acts, but the work was later revised into a one act operetta in 1964. The operetta tells the story of a family who is caught in a difficult set of circumstances surrounding the contents of a will and the dispersal of a vast fortune. The work premiered in Olomouc on 14 November 1936.
History
Le testament de la tante Caroline was composed by Roussel in 1932–1933. The comic operetta was a departure from his earlier works which were all of a serious nature. Roussel acknowledged that the works of composers Arthur Honegger and Jacques Ibert had influenced him to pursue writing a comic opera as they had been successful both critically and financially. He described the operetta as "a sort of opérette-bouffe whose characters are almost entirely grotesque and who should be played without any fear of exaggerating their effect".The opera premiered at the opera house in Olomouc on 14 November 1936 to somewhat cool reviews. The French premiere took place at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 11 March 1937. Although Roussel intended for the work to be "clear, pleasant and accessible", the critics felt he had difficulty in "adapting himself to simplicity". In reaction to this criticism, Nino, after Roussel's death, significantly revised the operetta by cutting it from three acts to just one act in 1964. The revised version exists in French, English, German.