Blessed are the birthdays, because they allow you to immerse yourself in the complete works often unfairly neglected. The «little Mozart of the Champs-Élysées» (form silly, but has the leather strong), we always mention the inevitable Belle Hélène , Périchole , Life in paris and Orpheus in the underworld , which are usually scheduled around the end of the year holidays, so that the grandchildren accompany their grandparents to the Opera, in the morning. And then there are the admirable Tales of Hoffmann , long regarded as the only «serious» musician’s German-French.
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Las, Offenbach, there is much more to Offenbach. This handful of genuine masterpieces grows in the shade of a corpus huge, nearly six hundred opus! While certainly not the best water (Offenbach composed a sidereal rate, drawing from the longing in his own works, dating, the ravaudant, repatouillant, at the option of the desires of the public), but it never ceases to rediscover pieces unjustly neglected. The work of benedictine musicologist Jean-Christophe Keck has a lot to do in these resurrections, because he has been defending for years the flag offenbachien in dust and collecting partitions scattered over time. Also welcome the boldness of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, which was launched in defence of the French repertoire of the years 1850-1930, with a passion unquenchable.
One of the last partitions of Offenbach
This is why and how the parisian public can be heard, for the first time, this rare Master Péronilla , on the stage of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. This version of the concert will delight fans of the «Grand Jacques», because it is one of the latest partitions of the musician, contemporary Tales of Hoffmann: it was created in 1878, two years before his death. A Offenbach late, so, but who finds his first love: he is an opera buffa (comic opera composed for the Bouffes Parisiens, with a libretto croquignolet. In this espagnolade, we see a woman ending up in prison in a convent for bigamy, before his father, the chocolatier Péronilla, does not take fact and cause for it.
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A history of light and slapstick in which Offenbach was particularly keen, since he set himself the hand of the libretto. The distribution is the pride of the French voices, with the Leona of Véronique Gens, Manoela Anaïs Constans and the Péronilla the always cheerful Eric Huchet. In the role of Ripardos, we are happy to find the if French-speaking Tassis Christoyannis. Finally, fingers crossed for the conductor Markus Poschner knows how to give the «Offenbach’s touch» necessary to the luxurious national Orchestra of France, because nothing is more fragile than the lightness.
Master Péronilla at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , 15 avenue Montaigne in paris (Viii), Tel. : 01 49 52 50 50, Date : the 1 June to 20 h.-Seat : from 10 to 85 € .
