The early performances of "Mignon" in this country were in Italian, and were more successful than the later revivals in French, by which time the opera had become somewhat passé.
Italian composers are fortunate in having written music so difficult technically that none but the most accomplished singers can risk it. Moreover the "Connais-tu le pays" was at one time done to death here, both by concert singers and amateurs.
It is a work of delicate texture of charm rather than passion with a story that is, perhaps, too ingenuous to appeal to the sophisticated audience of the modern opera house. Notwithstanding the popularity of two airs in "Mignon" - "Connais-tu le pays?" and the "Polonaise" - the opera is given in America but infrequently. Townspeople, gypsies, actors and actresses, servants, etc. MIGNON, stolen in childhood from an Italian castle Mezzo-sopranoįREDERICK, a young nobleman Buffo Tenor or Contralto Ronconi (Frederick) and Capoul Metropolitan Opera House, October 21, 1883, with Nilsson, Capoul, and Scalchi (Frederick). New York, Academy of Music, November 22, 1871, with Nilsson, Duval (Filina), Mlle. Produced, Opéra Comique, Paris, November 17, 1866. Opera in three acts by Ambroise Thomas, words, based on Goethes "Wilhelm Meister," by Barbier and Carré.
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