This is event is now sold out.

Opéra Louisiane is presenting a special performance of Lee Hoiby’s comic one-act opera Bon

Appétit! on Friday, September 9 at 7pm at Juban’s restaurant. This delicious opera is a comedic take

on a classic episode of Child’s popular television show – set to music! The flamboyant master chef,

Julia Child teaches the makings of a classic French chocolate cake – Le Gâteau au Chocolat

L’Éminence Brune. 

With his short opera Bon Appétit!, American composer Lee Hoiby (1926-2011) took on the making

of a chocolate cake, as told through the actual words of celebrity chef Julia Child. Hoiby

composed Bon Appétit! In 1985. The libretto for Bon Appétit! Was adapted by Hoiby’s frequent

collaborator and partner Mark Shulgasser from transcripts of two episodes of Child’s TV show, The

French Chef. The overwhelming popularity of Child (1912-2004) came not just from her culinary

expertise but from her self-deprecating humor and matter-of-fact style. Hoiby wisely left most of

the gags for the staging and wrote a tuneful but straight-ahead vocal line. Like Child’s whipped egg

whites, Bon Appétit! may be light and frothy, but it’s the result of a master’s sure touch.

Bon Appetit! Will be paired with Leonard Bernstein’s The Four Recipes. The songs are recipes from

the 1899 French cookery book La Bonne Cuisine Française (Tout ce qui a rapport à la table,

manuel-guide pour la ville et la campagne) Fine French Cooking (Everything That Has to Do with

the Table, Manual Guide for City and Country" by Emile Dumont. Bernstein owned the book for

many years. [1] Bernstein translated the recipes into English.

In Opéra Louisiane’s clever staging the soprano singing the song cycle will attempt to cook these

intricate dishes and fail miserably, only to turn on the television to watch Julia Child bake an

extraordinary cake that she epically fails to replicate.

Ticket includes 3 course meal, wine, beer, soda and Musical Performance