Set design and illustration credit: Philippe Chaperon; restored by Adam Cuerden
Haydée is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed by the Théâtre Royal de l'Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris on 28 December 1847. The libretto, based on a short story by Prosper Mérimée, was written by Eugène Scribe. The plot is set during the 16th-century wars between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, and involves a naval commander with a guilty secret, his ward, his slave girl, a handsome captain and a villainous spy. After much confusion and intrigue, everything ends happily for the main protagonists. This illustration shows Philippe Chaperon's set design for the second act of a 1891 Opéra-Comique performance of Haydée at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.