ABSTRACT
Xavier Boisselot wrote two opéras comiques to libretti co-authored by Eugène Scribe and Gustave Vaëz: Ne touchez pas à la reine (1847) and Mosquita la sorcière (1851). Although the first was performed at the Opéra-Comique, the second was staged at the institution that - although called the Opéra National in 1851 - later changed its name to Théâtre-Lyrique. This pair of works allows a perspective on two related matters:
1. The surviving correspondence between Vaëz and Scribe permits a detailed view of the working practices between two librettists at a point where opéra comique was in a state of flux and opens the only window onto Scribe's relations with a collaborator.
2. Although the two works have much in common, they were written for two different institutions, at a time when the Théâtre-Lyrique was aggressively recruiting composers and librettists, and the Opéra-Comique was admitting works to its repertory that were beginning to stretch the traditional limits of opéra comique.
Mosquita la sorcière and Ne touchez pas à la reine! originated in the same hands, but their destinations were different, and they are witnesses to the complex politics of genre as the July Monarchy yielded to the Second Republic.
