Offenbach: La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein on DVD
Opéra-bouffe in 3 acts by Jacques Offenbach, to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (a form of operetta, with spoken dialogue)
2004(LI) - Marc Minkowski - Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble
Choeur des Musiciens du Louvre
Théâtre Musical de Paris-Châtelet
Virgin Classics, 2005 release; 2 DVDs, region-free, 16:9 image with excellent definition, LPCM stereo, DTS surround, Dolby surround with excellent balance.
Subtitles in original French, English, German, Spanish, and Italian
Running time 154 minutes. No extras.
The same performance is also available on CD.
La Grande-Duchesse: Felicity Lott
Wanda: Sandrine Piau
Fritz: Yann beuron
Le Baron Puck: Franck Leguérinel
Le Prince Paul: Eric Huchet
Le Général Boum: François Le Roux
Le Baron Crog: Boris Grappe
Népomuc: Alain Gabriel
Iza: Maryline Fallot
Olga: Blandine Staskiewicz
Charlotte: Jennifer Tani
Amélie: Aurélia Legay
Le Notaire: Christophe Grapperon
Stage directing and Costumes: Laurent Pelly
Sets: Chantal Thomas
Choreography: Laura Scozzi
Fabulous opening credits... pretty funny and well done.
Energetic, enticing overture suggesting that we're in for a treat. The orchestra/conducting are top notch.
First zany chaotic chorus, well acted, danced, sung. First aria, hilarious with rather funny lyrics, good acting, good tenor - it's a soldier (Fritz) trying to score with a young woman (Wanda) before he goes to war. This merges into a waltz danced by the whole company, faster and faster, spinning. Wow, what a start!!
The baritone Général Boum comes in, funny costume, excellent voice. Good acting. Good choreography with all the soldiers marching along. Oh! My! God! This is *really* good.
A duet between Fritz and Wanda ensues, a bit overlong and repetitious, less good than what came before it. Soprano Piau is not that especial in looks (I've been growing more and more demanding lately, especially after watching the eye-candy-rich M22) but is talented and competent as a singer/actress.
Scenarios up to this point - an arid landscape with trenches. Well done. Costumes are interesting.
A word about the plot. Baron Puck, the Grande-Duchesse's tutor, comes in to tell the general that he declared war in order to entertain the bored and depressed lady. She has been promised in marriage to Prince Paul but doesn't love him. Baron Crog is supposed to convince her to marry the prince but is not doing such a good job.
Apparently (I'm jumping ahead) what will happen is that the Grande-Duchesse will fall in love with cunning soldier Fritz and will promote him up and up to the great dispair of his biggest rival General Boum, until Fritz is given the position of Commander-In-Chief and dispatched to lead the army against the enemy. Should be fun. Let's continue.
The great Felicity Lott comes in (title role) and immediately raises the bar in terms of singing and acting. Spectacular. A pleasure to watch and hear in spite of being long in the tooth. Her opening aria, the rondo
Ah, que j'aime les militaires is delightful.
The
Regimental Song is next, typical Offenbach, involving again the whole company lead by Dame Lott to excellent effect. She sings surrounded by the soldiers (it's the scene on the top half of the cover picture).
Effeminate Prince Paul enters the stage, wearing a funny suit (it's him on the bottom part of the cover picture, center, with General Boum to his right and Baron Puck to his left).
The surprising melodious duet that follows is the
Newspaper Report, and both Dame Lott and Mr. Huchet with his beautiful tenor voice do an excellent job.
Zany ensemble
Ils vont tous partir is next and is one of the best moments of the first act. The hysterical Grande-Duchesse, having already promoted Fritz all the way to General and Commander-in-Chief, gets pretty upset to see that he still has his eyes on Wanda rather than on her. Both women engage in symmetric histrionic coloraturas, to great comic effect.
Lott performs next the couplets of the saber,
Voici le sabre de mon père, with interesting orchestration. The Grande-Duchesse gives the famed weapon to Fritz, while Wanda grows increasingly distressed.
We get to the finale of the first act. My friends, it is phenomenal. Offenbach at his best. Varied, fast paced, lively. A true
tour de force.
The first act alone is enough to convince me that we are facing operetta greatness. This is a great work, done by great orchestra/conductor/chorus/singers with the help of very excellent stage directing and choreography.
Second act is not as good as act I. It is... better! The
Trio of the Plot is one of the best moments I've ever seen in comic opera. Pretty outstanding! Dame Felicity Lott continues to steal the show with her formidable performance, one for the ages!
Scenarios for act II are very nice with the crazy staircases going in all directions. This production - which shares with DVDs
La Belle Hélène and
Orphée aux Enfers the same competent team lead by Minkowski and Pelly - has added lots of music that had been previously cut in the then standard-bearer audio recording by conductor Plasson and soprano Régine Crespin - makes one wonder what else we've been missing, when we think that Offenbach composed 100 operettas, of which just a handful are available on DVD.
As an attestation to Offenbach's considerable musical powers, he includes a lyrical, delicate moment in the second act,
Dites lui qu'on l'a remarqué, breaking for a while the madcap pace to provide a more intimate moment.
Then we get to the "new" finale of the second act, which wasn't there in the Plasson recording, including
Le Carillon de ma grand-mère which indeed justifies all the buzz about it, it's signature Offenbach, accelerating more and more to reach a
galop. The choreography is truly excellent. What a production!
Act III opens with a super funny ballet performed by men only, half of them dressed in drag as ballerinas. You gotta see it, folks. It's quite incredible.
By the way, Dame Lott is British but has excellent pronunciation and articulation in French. What a classy artist!
Third act loses pace a bit. Maybe the cuts were wise after all. The balance between spoken dialogue and music favors the former more than in other acts, dampening down the excitement, which also happens musically, since the chorus
Nuptial Song and the ensemble
Bonne Nuit have a slower tempo.
The Couplets of the Newlyweds recovers pace, which remains brisk with
Ouvrez! Ouvrez! and reaches full Offenbachian
galop again with
À Cheval!
The Orchestral Entracte, another
galop very similar to the one in
Orphée aux Enfers is played and made more pleasant by a wickedly comic Can Can style ballet performed again by men only.
A tremendous drinking song follows with all the soldiers and all the girls drunk at the wedding party (I've not updated the plot - by now Fritz and Wanda got married, the Duchesse wanted to kill hill him for revenge, but when she saw handsome Baron Crog she thought that if she forgot about revenge and married the prince after all, she could take Crog as lover). It's a pretty fantastic drinking song, with waltz undertones.
Funny ensemble, the General's Lament, is the report of the plank that Boum played on Fritz (a more subdued revenge than killing him) having him beat up by the husband of Boum's former mistress, who took Fritz for his wife's lover.
The Grand Finale is up. General rejoicing, all ends well of course.
In spite of the third act being less good than the first two with some longueurs and less frenetic pace, it's all very satisfactory. A brilliant work, brilliantly performed.
Highly recommended. Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!