About this edition
François-Adrien Boieldieu's La dame blanche (1825) is widely regarded as his masterpiece and one of the most beloved French operas of the nineteenth century, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe drawn from Sir Walter Scott's novels Guy Mannering and The Monastery. The opera went on to reach its 1,000th performance at the Paris Opéra-Comique in 1862, a milestone few stage works of its era could claim. Its overture, a concert favorite in its own right, opens with evocative horn writing that conjures the opera's Scottish setting before giving way to the bright, tuneful energy and orchestral polish for which Boieldieu was celebrated.
This edition reproduces a full orchestral score issued by Johann André of Offenbach am Main, plate number 11547, undated but attributable to around 1875. Founded in 1774, André is one of the oldest continuously operating music publishing houses in Europe, and holds a distinguished place in music history as the firm that acquired a substantial portion of Mozart's manuscript estate from Constanze Mozart in 1799. By the later nineteenth century André had built an extensive catalog of full orchestral scores covering the standard operatic and concert repertory of the day, engraved to the exacting standards for which the house was known — making editions like this one valuable both for performance and as a window into period publishing practice.
About this edition:
- Full orchestral score (all instrumental parts included)
- Page size: 8.5 x 11 inches
- Reproduced from a historical public domain edition
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing
Because the original André edition has long since entered the public domain, we're able to bring this handsome historical score back into print — making Boieldieu's overture freely accessible to conductors, orchestral musicians, students, and scholars who want to work from a faithful, well-engraved edition.