Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
La Vie Parisienne – opéra-bouffe in 5 Acts (complete, original version 1866)
Gabrielle: Anne-Catherine Gillet (soprano)
Métella: Véronique Gens (soprano)
Raoul de Gardefeu: Artavazd Sargsyan (tenor)
La Baronne de Gondremarck: Sandrine Buendia (soprano)
Other cast beneath review
Chœur de l’Opéra national du Capitole de Toulouse
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Romain Dumas
rec. 2023, Hall aux Grains, Toulouse, France
Book 232 pp: French libretto & English translation
Bru Zane BZ1057 [2 CDs: 159]

So here is the product of a labour of love from Bru Zane, whose mission is the rediscovery and promotion of neglected French Romantic music: a handsome, limited first edition of 5500 copies of a book and new recording devoted to restoring the first version of Offenbach’s most popular operetta portraying contemporary Parisian life, La Vie Parisienne.

Two extended essays in French (black type) and English (purple) detail the origins of the work and the music restored. The remainder of the book includes a synopsis, a full bilingual libretto, the cast and a tracklist. The book is punctuated by black and white photos and illustrations of performers and costume designs etc., complete with two coloured bookmarks to facilitate navigating the extensive information provided.

Regarding the previously unheard music presented here, I quote the blurb: “’The rehearsals for La Vie parisienne are almost driving me insane’, wrote librettist Ludovic Halévy a few days before the work’s first performance. The artists of the Palais-Royal company were struggling with some of the musical numbers Offenbach had written for them. Under pressure, composer and librettists had to simplify, cut, rewrite and sometimes even abandon some of their most successful inspirations. The international success of the final score soon ensured the hundreds of pages reluctantly deleted by Offenbach were well and truly forgotten. Now the research of the Palazzetto Bru Zane team has uncovered all this musical material, making it possible to present the world premiere recording. Listeners can now enjoy a delightful Diplomatic Trio, a Seduction Quintet, a Roadsweeper’s Song, an air for Urbain, the Fabliau of the Baroness, and more.”

There have not been many previous studio recordings of it in French – oddly, there have been more in German. The best-known was also recorded in Toulouse with the same choir and orchestra under Michel Plasson back in 1975, starring Régine Crespin, Mady Mesplé and Michel Sénéchal, but that used the cut, four acts version – without the original fourth act, the last two acts being simplified and condensed into one, losing a lot of music and considerably reducing the importance of several roles, especially Urbain.

The plot of the operetta is impenetrably complicated and convoluted, involving the love-affairs, disguises and deceits of the interactions between spoiled Parisian dandies and the ladies of the demimonde, wine, women and song. Woven in to these intrigues are constant satirical references to politics and social mores, class warfare and the disjuncture between Paris and the provinces, all of which would have been recognisable by contemporary audiences. Settings are Parisian landmarks like the Gare de l’Ouest – although the notes mysteriously refer instead to the Gare Saint-Lazare – and the Café Anglais. As the notes discuss, its genre is a peculiar hybrid of vaudeville and operetta. Whatever it is, it was a huge success, but the 1873 revival went with the drastically curtailed version which has since prevailed – hence Bru Zane’s desire to rehabilitate the original. I do not propose to discuss the numerous restorations in any detail as I am not familiar with the cut version to compare this with. In any case they are extensively described, act by act, in the section of the notes titled “The music of the first version”.

Besides, in the end, what matters is the quality of performance and whether it hangs together when performed and recorded in its complete original form. La Vie Parisienne requires a large cast of fourteen singers – of whom the most familiar here is Véronique Gens – who must be native or fluent French speakers in order to handle the text. The libretto is indispensable, given that there is a lot of spoken dialogue.

Here is where I begin to doubt whether I am the right person to assess both the music and the performance here – a bit late, you might wryly observe, given that I have elected to be the reviewer. Unlike so many of my compatriots, I have no great attachment to Gilbert and Sullivan and readily acknowledge that to be my problem. I am, however, a Francophile/phone and my response to Offenbach’s music here is that it is the French equivalent: to my ears, relentlessly chirpy in content and frequently musically banal, no matter how skilfully it is managed. Nor am I very keen on lots of small, white, mixed falsetto tenors trilling away melodiously an unending succession of “oompah” tunes and “patter” songs. Obviously I could be a humourless killjoy, but I do enjoy Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and Orphée aux Enfers, which I find more musically varied and inventive. I do not necessarily require excursions into the world of Grand Opera where Offenbach was venturing in his final work, Les contes d’Hoffmann – but I cannot get excited about a mundane waltz-rhythm duet in which the pair twitter, “Voilà la gantière! Voilà la bottière!” (Here’s the glovemaker! Here’s the bootmaker!”). In short, too much of this work bores me. There are bouts of extreme over-acting in the dialogue such as the throat-wrenching screaming indulged in by both Caroline Meng as Mme de Folle-Verdure and Marie Gautrot as Mme de Quimper-Karadec. On the other hand, the newly recovered “Diplomatic Trio” and the “Snoring Trio” certainly amuse, some more over-acting in both notwithstanding, and frothy nonsense like “Sa robe fait frou frou/Ses petits pieds fait toc” (Her dress goes rustling frou frou/ Her little feet go toc toc) raises a smile if you are in the right frame of mind…

I readily acknowledge that this is not a work which demands singers of high operatic quality – although I suspect that the roster of the Opéra-Comique of the 50s and 60s would have been able to supply more vocally engaging male soloists. Gens apart, there are perhaps no major voices here, although Anne-Catherine Gillet affords considerable pleasure as Gabrielle; she sings another salvaged number, Chanson de la balayeuse (The Roadsweeper), which is not especially distinguished musically but makes a neat set piece displaying her vocal skills. Likewise, the duet for the Baron and Pauline hymning love, sung by the warm soprano Elena Galitskaya, makes a welcome respite from the otherwise generally driven pace of the comedy. Another discovery, the Fabliau for the Baroness in Act IV, is again easy on the ear without aspiring to much originality. The finale to Act III and ensuing Entr’acte are both clearly close cousins to the Galop from Orphée aux Enfers – Offenbach re-working a successful formula. I find that in fact the quality of the music improves as we proceed through the acts and I am increasingly entertained. The hedonistic Ronde ensemble in Act V celebrating the joys of Paris preceding the Mozartian quotations in the first Pantomime on Don Giovanni, the Rondeau de Métella waltz song all form a highly diverting sequence and climax, as do the second and third homages to Mozart and the reprise of the Ronde with the cacophony of borrowings such as the “Au mont Ida” tune from La belle Hélène.

I would not wish to permit my personal ambivalence towards this admirable enterprise to compromise others’ liking for it; if it is to your taste, you will not be disappointed.

Ralph Moore

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Other cast
Bobinet: Marc Mauillon (tenor)
Le Baron de Gondremarck: Jérôme Boutillier (baritone)
Le Brésilien/Le Major Frick/Gontran: Pierre Derhet (tenor)
Pauline: Elena Galitskaya (soprano)
Clara: Louise Pingeot (soprano)
Bertha: Marie Kalinine (mezzo-soprano)
Mme de Quimper-Karadec: Marie Gautrot (mezzo-soprano)
Mme de Folle-Verdure: Caroline Meng (mezzo-soprano)
Urbain/Alfred/Un Employé: Philippe Estèphe (baritone)
Prosper/Joseph/Alphonse: Carl Ghazarossian (tenor)