Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête (La fille du régiment)

La fille du régiment was the first opera Donizetti wrote directly to a French text, staged at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 11 February 1840 while he was simultaneously preparing Les martyrs for the Opera. Berlioz reviewed the premiere sourly, complaining that Paris was being colonised by Italian composers. The piece settled into the house repertory nonetheless and stayed there for a century. Marie has been raised by a French regiment in the Tyrol and turns out to be an aristocrat; Tonio's first-act aria, with its nine high Cs, became the measure of a certain kind of tenor.