Rescue opera rescue opera; Luigi Cherubini's "Lodoïska" (1791) has also been named a founding work of the genre. Other examples from the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the period when rescue opera flourished, are Nicolas Dalayrac's "Camille ou Le souterrain" (1791), Jean-François Le Sueur's "La caverne" (1793), and Cherubini's "Les deux journées" (1800). While the rescue opera was primarily a French genre, the two best-known operas in the genre are not French. Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio" is by far the most famous example today, and was also influenced by the German "Singspiel". A work which is similar
The Secret (opera) The Secret (opera) The Secret () is a comic opera in three acts by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was written by Eliška Krásnohorská. The premiere took place on 18 September 1878 at the Nové České Divadlo (New Czech Theatre) in Prague. Krásnohorská proposed the idea for a new opera to Smetana two weeks after the opening of "The Kiss", but kept details of the plot a secret from the composer until July 1877, when a draft outline, drawing on several sources, including "Les femmes et le secret" by La Fontaine, was sent to him. The librettist had set the action