Le roi malgré lui

• Chabrier composed his opera from Le roi malgré lui (The King in Spite of Himself or The Reluctant King) in 1884-7. It premiered on May 18, 1887.¹
• In the 1880s, Chabrier was trying to get one of his operas produced. When the director of the Opéra Comique offered to produce Le roi malgré lui, Chabrier was eager to accept. However, Chabrier had to transform Le roi from a comic operetta into a more formal opera to conform to the style audiences expected from this particular opera house. This is why the plot of Le roi displeased critics at its premiere: the wildly complicated storyline would have made sense in a madcap operetta but was confusing in a serious, dramatic opera.²
• Le roi malgré lui features an eclectic mix of musical styles (incl. patter singing, Wagner-style love scene, a pavane, a choral waltz,³ a fugue…)⁴
• Synopsis from Opera Scotland

“Danse slave” (Slavonic Dance)

• Danse slave (Slavonic Dance) is from a dance and chorus at opening of the opera’s third act.⁵
• A mazurka is a traditionally Polish dance in triple meter.⁶

“Fête polonaise” (Polish Festival)

• Fête polonaise (Polish Festival)⁷ is music from a ballet within the opera, a ballroom scene.
• The music consists of waltzes and mazurkas (not the dance called a “polonaise;” Chabrier uses the word “polonaise” according to its literal French meaning, “Polish.”)⁸

1. Steven Huebner, “Chabrier, (Alexis-)Emmanuel,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 19, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005351.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “Chabrier: Le Roi Malgre Lui/ Hendricks, Quilico, Dutoit,” ArchivMusic.com, accessed August 19, 2019, http://www.arkivmusic.com/albumpage/722693-E1190.
5. Daniel G. Rubin and James Lyons, liner notes to Chabrier: España, Suite Pastorale, Fête Polonaise etc., Paul Paray, Detroit Symphony, Mercury 434303-2, CD, 1991.
6. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4^th ed., s.v. “Mazurka” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
7. “Fête Polonaise by Chabrier,” SOA Symphony Orchestra, accessed August 19, 2019, http://www.soaorchestra.org/symphony/fete-polonaise-by-chabrier
8. Daniel G. Rubin and James Lyons, liner notes to Chabrier: España, Suite Pastorale, Fête Polonaise etc., Paul Paray, Detroit Symphony, Mercury 434303-2, CD, 1991.