L'Arlésienne is incidental music composed by Georges Bizet for Alphonse Daudet's drama of the same name, usually translated as The Girl from Arles. It was first performed on 30 September 1872 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris. Bizet's music consists of 27 numbers for chorus and small orchestra, ranging from pieces of background music (mélodrames) only a few measures long, to entr'actes. The score achieves powerful dramatic ends with the most economic of means. Still, the work received poor reviews in the wake of the unsuccessful premiere and is not often performed now in its original form, although recordings are available. However, key pieces of the incidental music, most often heard in the form of two suites for orchestra, have become some of Bizet's most popular compositions. History Composition history In July 1872, Léon Carvalho, director of the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, commissioned Georges Bizet to compose incidental music for his production of Alphonse Daudet's play L'Arlésienne. Although the drama was based on the author's short story of the same name, first published in the newspaper L'Événement (The Event, 1866), and later in his collection Lettres du mon moulin (Letters from My Windmill, 1869), the plot was originally inspired by a real event: the suicide of a nephew of writer Frédéric Mistral as a consequence of amour fou. L'Arlésienne, incidental music, Op. 23 (1872) Bizet composed 27 numbers for the five act play, which was presented in three acts and five scenes. Half of the numbers, mostly mélodrames, are quite short (under 20 measures) and are designed to be performed as background music for spoken drama. On the other hand, seven numbers, including the overture, an intermezzo (the "Minuetto"), three entr'actes, one longer mélodrame (the "Adagietto"), and the Farandole, are distinctive and lengthy enough to stand on their own outside of their stage setting. The drama is set on the Rhône river, in Camargue, south of Arles, in southwestern Provence. To help give the composition Provençal color, Bizet used three existing tunes from a folk-music collection found in the book Lou tambourin (The Tambourin, Avignon, 1864) by writer and tambourinaire François Vidal: № 3: Danso dei Chivau-Frus (Dance of the Frisky Horses)—a brisk tune scored by Bizet for flute, piccolo, and tambourin (a Provençal drum); combined ingeniously with March of the Kings in the Farandole in Act 3 at the climax of the drama. № 7: Èr dóu