'
Meyerbeer was far too clever a man to undertake anything he could not
carry through successfully, and in these operas he caught the trick of
French opera comique very happily.
'L'Etoile du Nord' deals with the fortunes of Peter the Great, who, when
the opera opens, is working as a shipwright at a dockyard in Finland. He
wins the heart of Catherine, a Cossack maiden, who has taken up her
quarters there as a kind of vivandiere. Catherine is a girl of
remarkable spirit, and after repulsing an incursion of Calmuck Tartars
single-handed, goes off to the wars in the disguise of a recruit, in
order to enable her brother to stay at home and marry Prascovia, the
daughter of the innkeeper. The next act takes place in the Russian camp.
Catherine, whose soldiering has turned out a great success, is told off
to act as sentry outside the tent occupied by two distinguished officers
who have just arrived. To her amazement she recognises them as Peter and
his friend Danilowitz, a former pastry-cook, now raised by the Czar to
the rank of General. Catherine's surprise and pleasure turn to
indignation when she sees her lover consoling himself for her absence
with the charms of a couple of pretty vivandieres, and when her senior
officer reprimands her for eavesdropping, she bestows upon him a sound
box on the ears. For this misdemeanour she is condemned to be shot, but
she contrives to make her escape, first sending a letter to Peter
blaming him for his inconstancy, and putting in his hand the details of
a conspiracy against his person which she has been fortunate enough to
discover.
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