La fée Urgèle, ou Ce qui plaît aux dames (The Fairy Urgèle, or What Pleases Women) is an opéra comique (specifically a comédie mêlée d'ariettes) in four acts by the composer
Egidio Duni. The libretto, by Charles-Simon Favart, is based on Voltaire's Ce qui plaît aux dames and Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale.
The opera was first performed at the Théâtre Royal de la Cour at Fontainebleau on 26 October 1765. The elaborate medieval staging cost 20,000 livres according to Grimm in his Correspondance littéraire. It was revived at the Comédie-Italienne on 4 December 1765 and given over 100 times in the following years, popularizing medieval settings for other operas such as
Richard Coeur-de-lion and Aucassin et Nicolette.
Robert is a knight imprisoned in a 7th-century French court controlled by women. He must answer the question: what gives the most pleasure to women? He is obliged to agree to marry an old woman who is then transformed into the beautiful Marton.
