Performers
Torquemada, a clockmaker: Jean-Paul Fouchecourt
Concepcion, Torquemada's wife: Sophie Koch
Don Inigo Gomez: Alain Vernhes
Ramiro, a muleteer: Franck Ferrari
Gonzalve, a student poet: Yann Beuron

Paris National Opera
Seiji Ozawa (conductor)

First performed in Paris in 1911, L'heure Espagnole is Ravel's seldom-performed one-act comic opera, set to a French libretto by Franc Nohain. The work is perhaps most well known for its varied instrumentation, which includes clock pendulums, tubular bells, sleigh bells, a spring, a whip and a xylophone.

The action centres around the clockmaker Torquemada. It is his day to regulate the municipal clocks, and his wife Concepción's day to entertain her lovers. When Ramiro, a muleteer, visits the shop to have his watch repaired, Concepcion fears his presence will ruin her rendezvous with the poet Gonzalve. To distract Ramiro, Concepción asks him to carry out various tasks.

Meanwhile, another suitor, Don Inigo, arrives, and much hilarity ensues from Conceptión's attempts to hide the lovers from each other and smuggle each of them to her bedroom without Ramiro noticing. Finally, Concepción--weary of her suitors' antics--exits with the virile muleteer. Torquemada then returns, and the opera ends with a moral from medieval Italian poet Boccaccio.