Alfred Bruneau is a composer whose works have excited perhaps more
discussion than those of any living French composer. By critics who
pretend to advanced views he has been greeted as the rightful successor
of Wagner, while the conservative party in music have not hesitated to
stigmatise him as a wearisome impostor. 'Kerim' (1887), his first work,
passed almost unnoticed. 'Le Reve,' an adaptation of Zola's novel, was
produced in 1891 at the Opera Comique, and in the same year was
performed in London. The scene is laid in a French cathedral city. The
period is that of the present day.
Angelique, the adopted child of a couple of old embroiderers, is a
dreamer of dreams. All day she pores over the lives of the saints until
the legends of their miracles and martyrdoms become living realities to
her mind, and she hears their voices speaking to her in the silence of
her chamber. She falls in love with a man who is at work upon the
stained glass of the Cathedral windows. This turns out to be the son of
the Bishop. The course of their love does not run smooth. The Bishop, in
spite of the protestations of his son, refuses his consent to their
marriage. Angelique pines away, and is lying at the point of death when
the Bishop relents, and with a kiss of reconciliation restores her to
life. She is married to her lover, but in the porch of the Cathedral
dies from excess of happiness.
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