Music by Léo Delibes (1836–1891)

Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in three acts, first produced in Paris in 1883

The Characters:

• Nilakantha, a Brahmin priest • Lakmé, his daughter • Mallika, Lakmé's servant • Gérald, an English officer • Ellen, an English girl • Rose, Ellen's cousin and companion • Mrs. Benson: their chaperone • Hadji, Nilakantha's servant

Time: the nineteenth century Place: India

Act One

The Scene: the sacred garden around one of the temples of the Brahmins

The first act takes place before a temple that is mostly in ruins, surrounded by flowering tropical brambles; a stream glides past nearby, and around all this stands a fence of bamboo that guards the holy place from intruders. In the early morning the worshippers are heard repeating their prayers, led by the priest Nilakantha and his daughter Lakmé. When the priest leaves the temple, he orders the two Hindu servants to guard his daughter...

Lakmé remains with her servant Mallika, and together they join in a song in which they show their delight in the fragrance of the jasmine, the twittering of the birds, and the spreading shade of the trees... They resolve to bathe in the stream, so Lakmé takes off her ornaments and jewels and lays them on a stone bench; then the two board a boat, which drifts slowly along the stream.

Suddenly the stillness of the garden is torn by loud, boisterous laughter, coming from a party of English people who approach the bamboo fence and steal glances inside through the cracks. This party con-sists of two young officers, Gérald and Frederic, and two girls, Ellen and Rose, with their chaperone Mrs. Benson. As for the two girls, one of them, Ellen, is

betrothed to Gérald and on the verge of marriage. Before long the five join together in a merry song.

Their admiration for the strange garden reaches such a pitch that the two girls insist on breaking through the flimsy bamboo fence, and soon they force their way through and all enter the garden. Frederic recognizes the place and knows that the priest of this temple is Nilakantha, fiercely fanatical and full of hatred for the English; so he warns his companions that they have done wrong in this and are in imminent danger, but they pay no heed. They express their admiration for the brightly colored flowers, and Frederic points to a beautiful flower which he describes as deadly poison, at which Mrs. Benson cries: "What a dreadful country!"

One of the girls catches sight of Lakmé's jewels on the stone bench, and recalls what is whispered in conversation about the famed beauty of the priest-ess, whom the inhabitants look upon as a goddess. After a brief jest, all withdraw, leaving Gérald alone in the garden to sketch the jewels. Little by little Gérald falls under the influence of the magical place.

Lakmé returns, singing a sweet song, and no sooner has she dismissed her servants than she catches sight of the English intruder who has violated the sanctity of the sacred garden. She warns him to leave the place before he is discovered and killed for defiling the temple. But he — taken with the girl's enchanting beauty as he had been captivated by the beauty of her garden — pays no heed. Before long the two fall in love with each other at first sight, and they express their feelings in a graceful sung dialogue that begins "It is the god of youth." Lakmé hears the approaching footsteps of her father and urgently begs Gérald to withdraw at once. He slips away without being seen by Nilakantha. A crowd of Hindus enters the garden, crying out at the top of their voices at the sight of the shattered bamboo fence, and they become certain that the place has been defiled by strangers. Nilakantha swears revenge, and the curtain falls upon Lakmé, terrified by the contest between her love for her father and her sudden love for the handsome young Englishman.