The Duo de l’ouvreuse de l’Opéra Comique et l’employé du Bon Marché (Duet of the usherette from the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

 and the employee of the Bon-Marché

Le Bon Marché

Le Bon Marché is the name of one of the best known department stores in Paris, France. It is sometimes regarded as the "first department store in the world". Although this depends on what is meant by 'department store', it may have had the first specially designed building for a store in Paris...

 department store) is a comic vocal work by Emmanuel Chabrier

Emmanuel Chabrier

Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...

 for soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 and tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

, with piano accompaniment. The words are by Paul Fuchs and Henry Lyon.

It was written in March 1888 for a revue entitled Cent moins un staged at the house of the singer and patroness Madame Henriette Fuchs and was first performed at Fuch's house by Elisabeth Fuchs (her daughter) and Julien Tiersot

Julien Tiersot

Julien Tiersot born in Bourg-en-Bresse on 5 July 1857 and died in Paris on 10 August 1936, was a French musicologist, composer and a pioneer in ethnomusicology.- Biography :...

 (a music critic) in April 1888. The revue also had contributions from Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...

, Ernest Guiraud

Ernest Guiraud

Ernest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...

, Victorin de Joncières

Victorin de Joncières

Félix-Ludger Rossignol, known as Victorin de Joncières was a French composer and music critic.-Biography:...

, Théodore Dubois

Théodore Dubois

François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...

, Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

, Charles Lenepveu, André Messager

André Messager

André Charles Prosper Messager , was a French composer, organist, pianist, conductor and administrator. His stage compositions included ballets and 30 opéra comiques and operettas, among which Véronique, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire also enjoying international...

, Gabriel Pierné

Gabriel Pierné

Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné was a French composer, conductor, and organist.-Biography:Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz in 1863. His family moved to Paris to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining first prizes for solfège, piano, organ, counterpoint and fugue...

 and Paul Vidal

Paul Vidal

Paul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...

.

The piece was first published in Le Figaro

Le Figaro

Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

 musical in April 1893, along with the Couplets du capitaine des pompiers (in honour of Colonel Constant, the head of the fire brigade the night of the fire at the Opéra-Comique on 25 May 1887) by André Wormser.

The music is in two verses in a buffo style, with yodeling

Yodeling

Yodeling is a form of singing that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register to the falsetto/head register; making a high-low-high-low sound.The English word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln meaning "to...

 in the refrain. Chabrier gives indications such as "with a doleful and moronic air", "very stupid" and "dreamily". The usherette, financially secure thanks to government compensation to victims of the fire at the Salle Favart, is able to marry the shop assistant who sings praises to Aristide Boucicaut

Aristide Boucicaut

Aristide Boucicaut created what is considered to be among the first department stores.Born in Bellême, Orne, at 3:00 A. M. on Bastille Day, the son of a banker, he began as a simple clerk in Bellême before he left to become a fabric salesman selling shawls...

, founder of the Parisian department store, for his pension, while the usherette lauds Léon Carvalho

Léon Carvalho

Léon Carvalho was a French impresario and stage director.-Biography:Born Léon Carvaille in Port-Louis, Mauritius, he came to France at an early age...

, director of the Opéra Comique from 1876–87 and 1891-97.

Chabrier wrote to Mme Fuchs on 31 May 1888 to ask her to lend the manuscript to his publishers, Enoch Freress et Costallat, so that they could make a copy of the score.