Mireille

Mireille is an 1864 opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Michel Carré after Frédéric Mistral's poem Mireio. The vocal score is dedicated to George V of Hanover.
Mistral had become well-known in Paris with the publication of the French prose translation of Mireio in 1859, and Gounod probably knew the work by 1861. He was charmed by its originality, the story being much less contrived than many of those on the operatic stage at the time. The action of the opera is quite faithful to Mistral, although the sequence of events of the Val d'Enfer (Act 3, Scene 1) and Mireille's avowal of her love of Vincent to her father (Act 2 finale) are reversed in the opera. Gounod's biographer James Harding has argued that "what matters in this extended lyric poem is not the story but the rich tapestry or Provençal traditions, beliefs and customs that Mistral unfolds."