Portal:Opera/Selected picture/123
Poster for Gismonda, a 1919 French-language grand opera by Henry Février to a libretto by Henri Caïn and Louis Payen. Based on the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou, it tells the story of the widow of the Duke of Athens, Gismonda, who has to deal with conspiracies to kill her child and the man she grows to love. The planned premiere in Paris was halted by the outbreak of World War I but the composer was given leave from the French army to premiere the opera with Mary Garden in the title role at the Chicago Opera on 14 January 1919, before being performed in Paris at the Opéra-Comique on 15 October of the same year.