Le diable à quatre

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Le diable à quatre (The Devil to Pay) is an opéra comique in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck. The French-language libretto is by Michel-Jean Sedaine and Pierre Baurans, after the ballad opera by Charles Coffey. It was first performed at Laxenburg on May 28, 1759. The work was a popular success, and Haydn used a melody from it, "Je n’aimais pas le tabac beaucoup (I didn’t like tobacco much)” in his symphony Le soir.

The story concerns an ill-natured Marquise. An astrologer, to whom she had refused shelter at her chateau, transforms her into the wife of a surly cobbler named Jacques and transforms the cobbler’s sweet-natured wife into the Marquise. After the Marquise learns her lesson, the astrologer reverses the spell.