"Connais-tu le pays" (Mignon, Ambroise Thomas)
Також відомий як: Connais-tu le pays, Connais-tu le pays où fleurit l'oranger, air de Mignon, l'air de Mignon, Kennst du das Land
Overview
Mignon's romance in Act I of Ambroise Thomas's opéra-comique Mignon (libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré after Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), first given at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 17 November 1866. Mignon, asked where she comes from, remembers a sunny land, perhaps Italy, and sings "Connais-tu le pays où fleurit l'oranger ?", the French counterpart of Goethe's poem "Kennst du das Land". (Source: Wikipedia fr, "Mignon (opéra)", https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mignon_(op%C3%A9ra).) Thomas's score is public domain.
Marie and this work
It is Marie's "romance of the year" 1875–76 and the song of her homesickness for Italy.
- 049.0441 (15 Nov 1875): "Chaque année a sa romance. L'année dernière c'était On revient toujours à ses premières amours, cette année c'est l'air de Mignon. Toutes les deux ont fini tristement pour moi" (see On revient toujours). Audiffret identifies the aria from across the street at 048.0383.
- 055.1016 (22 Mar 1876, Rome): after a confused day over Torlonia she sits at the piano: "l'air de Connais-tu le pays est la consolation des âmes affligées et l'accompagnement de tous les chagrins". The footnote identifies it as Thomas's aria after Goethe.
- 056.0471 (6 Apr 1876): she sings "la prière de la madone, de Mignon" (a different number of the opera; not identified here).
- 062.0506 (20 Jun 1876): sings for General Bihovetz, who has never properly heard her, and holds the sustained note "de Mignon".
- 062.0547 (22 Jun 1876): praising Italy she cries with Mignon «Italia ! Reggio del ciel ! sol beato…», the Italian words (footnote suggests an Italian-language version of the opera; unverified). 062.0319 carries a footnote on "Ah! son rapita" from the same opera.
- 065.0002 and 066.0235 (Aug-Sep 1876): she quotes (065.0002, struck out in the manuscript) and recalls the first line, "Pas Nice, mais l'Italie."
Marie's "Mignon" is thus always this aria except where she names the prayer; see also Il était un roi de Thulé.