La dame blanche (
The White Lady) is an
opéra comique in three acts by the
French composer
François-Adrien Boieldieu. The
libretto was written by
Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no less than five works of the
Scottish writer Sir
Walter Scott, including his novels
The Monastery,
Guy Mannering, and
The Abbot. The opera has typical elements of the
Romantic in its
Gothic mode, including an exotic Scottish locale, a lost heir, a mysterious castle, a hidden fortune, and a ghost, in this case benevolent. The work was one of the first attempts to introduce the fantastic into opera and is a model for works such as
Giacomo Meyerbeer's
Robert le diable and
Charles Gounod's
Faust. The opera's musical style also heavily influenced later operas like
Lucia di Lammermoor,
I puritani and
La jolie fille de Perth.