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Jacques Offenbach. La Périchole

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La Périchole couvertureCD-Book. Bru Zane Label. French Opera Collection n. 21.

‘Offenbach has resolutely embarked on a new path for operetta that is smiling rather than crazy, refined rather than clownish’ (Lavoix, 1868). Although La Périchole is today one of Offenbach’s most famous opéras-bouffes, its first run was not so promising. The audience was dumbfounded by this gallery of poverty-stricken, starving characters, despised by a tyrant, however ridiculous he might be. Some were even offended by the drunk scene – whose protagonist is a woman! – and the wedding with bride and groom inebriated... The hit numbers were not enough to keep the work in the repertory, despite music as inventive and catchy as that of La Vie parisienne or Orphée aux Enfers. It was not until after the upheavals of the War of 1870 had died down that an extensively revised score returned to the theatre. Since then, La Périchole has never left the international stage.

bru-zane.com

Content

Alexandre Dratwicki, The Péricholes of Offenbach, and Marc Minkowski’s version

Gérard Condé – La Périchole, step by step

Waldemar Kamer – The Spanish amours of the Second Empire

Arnold Mortier – How Offenbach rehearses

Libretto

Related persons

Composer, Cellist

Jacques OFFENBACH

(1819 - 1880)

Librettist

Henri MEILHAC

(1831 - 1897)

Composer

Fromental HALÉVY

(1799 - 1862)

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