Dr Miracle (Le docteur Miracle, 1857) was Georges Bizet's light and airy first opera, written when he was just eighteen for a competition run by the master of French operetta, Jacques Offenbach. A joint winner with Charles Lecocq, the opera was performed eleven times at Offenbach's Bouffes-Parisiens theatre. More operetta than opera, and only about an hour in length, Dr Miracle is a comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously, yet still shows early evidence of the talent of the future composer of Carmen.

Reset in Hong Kong and performed here for the first time, Dr Miracle tells the timeless story of a young woman in love with a boy her overbearing father thinks unsuitable — only a doctor or lawyer will do — but, despite the attractions of a vain and flirty stepmother, love finds a way through various disguises, a possibly poisoned omelette, and a fake doctor with a miracle cure.

Dr Miracle is an accessible and laugh-out-loud introduction to the world of French opera and operetta, and a newly discovered gem for those that know Bizet’s other, more famous, works.

* Dr Miracle will be followed by the Paris-written one-act comic opera Rita, a delicious farce written at the end of Gaetano Donizetti’s life, while he was living in Paris. Donizetti’s music and Gustave Vaëz’s French libretto result in an Italian take on French opéra-comique with a story so familiar that it could be set anywhere — even Hong Kong!

Rita owns a small restaurant and she happens to have two husbands too! She believes the first husband died in an accident, instead he had run away to Canada. During their relationship, he hadn’t treated her very well, something which — with her new freedom — she now takes out on her timid second husband. As far as Husband#1 knows, Rita is dead too. He’s coming back to get her death certificate and be free to marry again. Husband#2 witnesses the reappearance of his predecessor, clearly very much alive and married, and sees it as a chance to escape his marriage to the tyrannical Rita. The two men meet and agree to play a special game: the winner will keep Rita as his wife forever. It goes without saying that both will try hard to lose!

Introductory talk