This chamber opera is based on Alain-René Lesage’s novel of the same name. The book was published in 1707 and became an immediate success with its saucy depiction of society and its frivolity and eroticism. The limping devil stands at the heart of the plot who offers the easy-going hero Zambullo a whole series of covert views into the private apartments of Parisian society.

In the opera, a narrator leads us through the nocturnal alleys of Madrid. He comments on the scene in the prison (a bal...