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Updated: June 28, 2025
Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to sing them: that was why. "Oh, well," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, "I presume there are as good singers today as there were then." "Where are they?" asked Mr. Browne defiantly. "In London, Paris, Milan," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy warmly.
And it is a week off; and there is the bell still jangling its shadow dance out of Dinorah. An audible shadow you understand, and an invisible sound, but quite distinct; and a plague take the tune!
The overture is a long piece of programme music, which is supposed to depict the bridal procession of Hoel and Dinorah, two Breton peasants, to the church where they are to be married. Suddenly a thunderstorm breaks over their heads and disperses the procession, while a flash of lightning reduces Dinorah's homestead to ashes.
Dinorah suddenly appears and enters the cottage, and much to his alarm keeps him playing and singing, which leads to a very animated vocal contest between her and the bagpiper. It is abruptly terminated, however, by the arrival of Höel. Dinorah makes her escape by a window, and Höel relates to Corentin the story of the Korigans' treasure.
Was it a dream? it seems like one. Have we been to Holland? have we heard the chimes at midnight at Antwerp? Were we really away for a week, or have I been sitting up in the room dozing, before this stale old desk? Here's the desk; yes. But, if it has been a dream, how could I have learned to hum that tune out of Dinorah? Ah, is it that tune, or myself that I am humming?
And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at the comfortable Hotel du Parc, and we have bought a novel apiece for a shilling, and every half-hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from Dinorah in the air. And we have been happy; and it seems about a month since we left London yesterday; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy care and the postman.
The scene of the opera is laid in Brittany, and when the first act opens, the following events are supposed to have transpired. On one of the days set apart by the villagers of Ploermel for a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin, Höel, the goatherd, and Dinorah, his affianced, set out to receive a nuptial benediction.
In order to wrest it from them, however, it is necessary for Höel to quit the country and spend a year in solitude in a desolate region. He bravely starts off, and Dinorah, thinking he has abandoned her, loses her wits, and constantly wanders about the woods with her goat, seeking him. Meanwhile the year expires and Höel returns, convinced that he has the secret for securing the treasure.
A procession is seen in the distance, and amid some exquisite pageant music Höel and Dinorah wend their way to the chapel, where the nuptial rites are supposed to be performed. "Le Prophète," an opera in five acts, words by Scribe, was first produced in Paris, April 16, 1849, with Mme. Viardot-Garcia as Fides, and M. Roger as John of Leyden.
Hoel, in despair at the ruin of his hopes, betakes himself to the village sorcerer, who promises to tell him the secret of the hidden treasure of the local gnomes or Korriganes if he will undergo a year of trial in a remote part of the country. On hearing that Hoel has abandoned her Dinorah becomes insane, and spends her time in roving through the woods with her pet goat in search of her lover.
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