La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment), a quickly-paced opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti premiered in 1840 in Paris. It begins in the carriage of the Marquise de Berkenfeld on the road to Austria.

All hilarity ensues when the Marquise discovers, then adopts, her own illegitimate daughter Marie, and tries to reform her. In the lesson scene, the bourgeois world of the aristocracy clashes famously with that of the regiment. After myriad plot twists and turns, Marie is reunited with her beloved regiment and fiancé, Tonio. Arias include “Salut à la France”, and “A mes amis", the fiendishly difficult tenor aria that catapulted Pavarotti into word fame.