The opera includes the popular "Flower Duet" ("Sous le dôme épais") for a soprano and mezzo-soprano, performed in act 1 by Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika.[2] The name Lakmé is the French rendition of Sanskrit Lakshmi, the name of the Hindu Goddess of Wealth. The opera's most famous aria is the "Bell Song" ("L'Air des clochettes") in act 2.
Time: Late nineteenth century, during the British Raj.
Act 1
The Hindus go to perform their rites in a sacred Brahmin temple under the high priest, Nilakantha. Nilakantha's daughter Lakmé, and her servant Mallika, are left behind and go down to the river to gather flowers where they sing together the "Flower Duet". As they approach the water at the river bank, Lakmé removes her jewellery and places it on a bench. Two British officers, Frédéric and Gérald (Delibes uses Frenchified versions of the then common English names Frederick and Gerald), arrive nearby on a picnic with two British girls and their governess. The British girls see the jewellery and, impressed with it, request sketches of it; Gérald volunteers to stay and make sketches of the jewellery. He spots Lakmé and Mallika returning and hides. Mallika leaves Lakmé for a while; while alone Lakmé sees Gérald and, frightened by the foreigner's incursion, cries out for help. However, simultaneously, she is also intrigued by him and so she sends away those who had responded to her call for help when they come to her aid. Lakmé and Gérald begin to fall in love with each other. Nilakantha returns and learns of the British officer's trespassing, vowing revenge on him for what he assumes to be an affront to Lakmé's honour.
Act 2
At a busy bazaar, Nilakantha forces Lakmé to sing (the "Bell Song") in order to lure the trespasser into identifying himself. When Gérald steps forward, Lakmé faints, thus giving him away. Nilakantha stabs Gérald, wounding him. Lakmé takes Gérald to a secret hideout in the forest, where she lovingly nurses him back to health.
Act 3
In the forest, Lakmé and Gérald hear singing in the distance. Gérald is frightened, but Lakme tells him that the singers are a group of lovers that seek out the water of a magical spring. When drunk, the water grants eternal love to the couple. While Lakmé fetches water that will confirm the vows of the lovers, Fréderic, Gérald's fellow British officer, appears and reminds him of his military duty to his regiment. Gérald sadly accepts that his colleague is correct. After Lakmé returns, she senses the change in Gérald and realises that she has lost him. Rather than live with dishonor, she tears a leaf from a poisonous datura tree and bites into it. She tells Gérald what she has just done and they drink the water together. Nilakantha finds their hut and enters as Lakmé is dying. She tells her father that she and Gérald drank from the magical spring. In that instant, she dies.
Music
In conventional form and pleasant style, but given over to the fashion for exoticism, the delicate orchestration and melodic richness earned Delibes a success with audiences.[6] The passionate elements of the opera are given warm and expressive music, while the score in general is marked by subtle harmonic colours and deft orchestration. Oriental colour is used in prayers, incantations, dances and the scene in the market.[4]
The act 2 aria "Où va la jeune Hindoue?" (the Bell Song) has long been a favourite recital piece for coloraturasopranos. (Recordings of it in Italian, as "Dov'è l'indiana bruna?", also exist.)
In recent years, the Flower Duet in act 1 has become familiar more widely because of its use in advertisements, in particular a British Airways commercial,[2] as well as in films.[7] The duet sung by Lakme and Mallika was adapted for the theme "Aria on air" for the British Airways "face" advertisements of the 1980s by music composers Yanni and Malcolm McLaren.[8]
No. 1b – Scene: "Lakmé, c'est toi qui nous protège!" (Lakmé, it is you who protect us!) (Nilakantha, Lakmé)
No. 2 – Duet (Flower Duet): "Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs ... Dôme épais, le jasmin" (Come Mallika, the lianas in bloom ... The jasmine forms a dense dome) (Lakmé, Mallika)
Scene: "Miss Rose, Miss Ellen" (Gérald)
No. 3 – Quintet & couplets: "Quand une femme est si jolie" (When a woman is so pretty) (Gérald)
Recitative: "Nous commettons un sacrilège" (We are committing sacrilege) (Gérald)
No. 4 – Air: "Prendre le dessin d'un bijou" (Make a drawing of a jewel) (Gérald)
No. 4b – Scene: "Non! Je ne veux pas toucher" (No! I do not want to touch) (Gérald, Lakmé)
No. 5 – Recitative & Strophes: "Les fleurs me paraissent plus belles" (The flowers appear more beautiful to me) (Lakmé)
No. 7 – Chorus & March: "Allons, avant que midi sonne" (Come before noon sounds)
No. 7b – Recitative: "Enfin! Nous aurons du silence!" (Finally! We will have silence!)
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Introduction
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Terana
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Rektah
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Persian
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Coda avec Choeurs
No. 8 – Airs de danse: Sortie
Recitative: "Voyez donc ce vieillard" (So see that old man)
No. 9 – Scène & Stances: "Ah! Ce vieillard encore!"" (Ah! That old man again!) (Nilankantha, Lakmé)
No. 9b – Recitative: "Ah! C'est de ta douleur" (Ah! It's your pain) (Lakmé, Nilankantha)
No. 10 – Scène & Légende de la fille du Paria (Air des Clochettes/The Bell Song): "Ah!... Par les dieux inspires... Où va la jeune Hindoue" (Ah... Inspired by the gods... Where is the Hindu girl going) (Lakmé, Nilankantha)
No. 11 – Scène: "La rage me dévore" (Rage consumes me) (Nilankantha, Lakmé)
No. 12 – Scène & Choeur: "Au milieu des chants d'allegresse" (Amid chants of cheerfulness) (Nilankantha, Lakmé)
No. 12b – Recitative: "Le maître ne pense qu'à sa vengeance" (The master thinks only of his revenge)
1970: Mady Mesplé (Lakmé), Charles Burles (Gérald), Roger Soyer (Nilakantha), Danielle Millet (Mallika), Chœurs et Orchestre du Théâtre National de l'Opéra-Comique, Alain Lombard (conductor) (EMI)
In the 1983 film The Hunger, the character portrayed by Catherine Deneuve plays the Flower Duet on the piano, then the music shifts into an actual opera recording.[12][better source needed]
^Charles P. D. Cronin and Betje Black Klier (1996), "Théodore Pavie's 'Les babouches du Brahmane' and the Story of Delibes's Lakmé", The Opera Quarterly 12 (4): 19–33.
