La Dame blanche Francois-Adrien Boieldieu / Arr. Thomas Krause

Ouvertüre zur Oper Die weisse Dame

La Dame blanche (engl. The White Lady) is a three-act opera by the french composer François-Adrien Boieldieu (17751834). Its première took place on dezember 10th 1825 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and it is called one of the most important french operas and the Mainpiece of the genre Opéra-comique. The Libretto was written by Eugène Scribe, who got his inspirations by five novels of the scottish author Sir Walter Scott, also including the novels The Monastery and Guy Mannering.
La dame blanche was totally bound to the restoring of the aristocracy in France after revolutional and napoleonic times. At the Finale of this opera the rebuilding of the formerly system and restoring of the old possessions is being celebrated. The two characters Anna and Gaveston are substitutes for the good and the evil alternatives in the way of handling aristrocratic possession.
Boieldieu used in his opera traditional and lyrical pieces, mixed with romantic fantasy, combining musical stylistics of the new epoche. On one side he composed simple stanza-songs as Jenny`s Ballade oft he White Lady, or Marguerite`s sentimental Spinning-Song, where the music is perfectly imitating the movement of the spinning wheel. On the other side there is sophisticated music for the whole ensemble like the Finale of act one, where Boildieu composed an extraordinary description of an upcoming thunderstorm.
In his overture he used several musical themes and motifs of the opera and creates an open door through which he instantly directs us into the middle of the playing of this opera. Boildieu leads us to an unknown, kind of exotic scottish little village, to a lost heir, to a mysterious castle, to a hidden treasure and a goodminded ghost.
The theme of the Allegro-part of this overture also successfully made it as March on motifs of the opera The white Lady into the Deutsche Armeemarschsammlung (collection of german military marches) and became part of the repertoire of german military bands.