Leibowitz Offenbach

This finely-focused and witty production of Jacques Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers with sets, costumes and lighting by the director Herbert Wernicke, is a visual and musical delight. The burlesque – conducted by Patrick Davin – is situated in a famous fin de siècle café and with a stupendous coup de théâtre the ensemble makes its entry into hell in a steam locomotive, which crashes through the ceiling. Elizabeth Vidal and Alexandru Badea in the main roles are supported energetically by the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and Offenbach’s famous “can-can” is, as ever, an intoxicating highlight.

Orpheus in the Underworld represents a quantum leap in Offenbach’s operetta output, for it would have been unthinkable to have created a stage work of such opulence and extravagance in Paris prior to that time. Strict regulations dating from the era of Napoleon I assigned to each of the city’s theatres a specific dramatic genre and a proportionate number of employees and performers. For Offenbach this meant writing for no more than three actors on stage at any one time. He openly flouted the regulations, however, ingeniously increasing his dramatic possibilities by adding puppets to his cast list and conveying what he had to say by means of banners held up by mute actors.

In the role of Eurydice, Natalie Dessay begins at once with a display of vocal and verbal pyrotechnics, which are then taken up by Yann Beuron as Orpheus. Together they give us an idea of the developments to follow. Dancers and singers melt into a unit. The stage setting and an unconventional choreography sparkle with inventiveness. When Pluto, for example, arrives on skis from the underworld onto Mt. Olympus and Offenbach quotes the famous can-can right in the middle of Pluto’s aria, it seems to be a parody of his own work. The production offers a wealth of material for modern interpretations of this operetta full to the brim with ironic sideswipes at morality and immorality.

A superficial view may regard Offenbach’s lightweight masterpiece, La belle Hélène, as „merely“ an opera buffa. But closer scrutiny of this charming, imaginative firework of intrigue makes one thing clear: the story of the Greek queen who started off the Trojan war is, in this version, a humorous and satirical caricature of the vulgar, decadent Parisian upper classes of Offenbach’s own day. Who better suited to produce a modern rendering of this work than the now highly acclaimed Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who also ensured the work’s historical accuracy? Employing a small string section, shining, colourful brass and richly varied percussion, the opera still strikes one as exceptionally modern. This impression is also enhanced by the designers of the production, recorded in 1997 at the Zurich Opera House: no less a figure than the fashion designer Jean–Charles de Castelbajac was responsible for the humorously expansive costumes; and the highly subtle stage–set was the work of Paolo Pivas.

Warner Classics & Erato DVD catalogue already contains several characteristically stylish and imaginative productions by the French opera director Laurent Pelly: Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Massenet’s Cendrillon, Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Handel’s Giulio Cesare. The last three all star Natalie Dessay, and now she and Pelly are reunited once again, this time for Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, staged at Barcelona’s Liceu opera house in early 2013.

By Jacques Offenbach. Seeking to exorcise the failure of his current love affair, the poet Hoffmann tells the story of his three past loves - the doll-like Olympia, the high-class courtesan Giulietta, and the ambitious but delicate Antonia - and recalls how each was thwarted by the evil influence of his rival. In this production by the distinguished film director, John Schlesinger, with spectacular designs by Maria Björnson and William Dudley, Offenbach's nightmare world is brought to life. The all-star cast is headed by Placido Domingo as Hoffmann: his three loves are Ileana Cotrubas, Agnes Baltsa and Luciana Serra and the manifestations of his rival are sung by Geraint Evans, Robert Lloyd, Siegmund Nimsgern and Nicola Ghiuselev. The score, which includes such favorites as the "Barcarolle" and the "Doll's Song", is conducted by Georges Prêtre.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann is a great, unfinished masterpiece. In 1880 Hoffenbach’s health began to deteriorate rapidly. Les Contes d’Hoffmann had already been programmed for the 1880/81 season of the Opéra-Comique but Offenbach was having a hard time finishing it and worked only in the moments of respite from his illness. he died on October 5th, leaving the opera incomplete (we still do not know to what extent). And so Ernest Guiraud, a ”specialist” who had already transformed into recitatives the spoken parts of Bizet’s Carmen, was called to finish the task. The opera was first staged at the Opéra-Comique on 10th February 1881 and met with great success. Soon it was being performed in the most important theatres of the world. Our edition has an Italian cast of exceptional quality, in which stand out the amazing voice of Desirée Rancatore, the extraordinary artistry of Ruggiero Raimondi and the fascinating direction of Pier Luigi Pizzi.Pizzi, one of today’s most creative directors.

Offenbach's masterpiece, based on three stories by the German author E.T.A. Hoffmann, is both a three-act opera and a trilogy of taut, individual dramas, all rolled into one.This Geneva production from 2002 features baritone Marc Laho in the tour-de-force triple villain roles, with three different standout sopranos as the tales' three heroines. French producer Olivier Py caused an uproar among Geneva operagoers with a staging of Tales of Hoffmann that features full-frontal male and female nudity and simulated on-stage lesbian and heterosexual sex.Audiences were left "gasping, giggling or reduced to stunned silence" by the production, which interprets the popular opera as an indictment of capitalist society. Py adds several simulated sex acts, including one between the poet Hoffman and the life-sized doll Olympia as she sings her main aria. Soprano Patricia Petitbon is a major tour de force as she sings Olympia wearing only a transparent body stocking in a Venetian bordello.

On 20 June 1819, 200 years ago, the famous composer Jaques Offenbach was born in Cologne as "Jakob" Offenbach. The young cellist Raphaela Gromes, who already received excellent reviews and even celebrated chart successes with her first two albums for Sony Classical, has come up with a very special Offenbach album for the anniversary, having already presented Offenbach's "Hommage à Rossini" in a highly praised premiere recording on her last Rossini album. For, before Offenbach was acclaimed in musical theatre, he himself had a great career as a cellist and was even celebrated throughout Europe as the "Liszt of the cello"

Dame Felicity Lott stars in a rollicking performance of Offenbach's operetta "La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein." The stage production was filmed in December 2004 at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. The result is a kaleidoscope of artistry and comedy that should not be missed! This production goes back to the original version which had been adjusted and censored after it's premiere at the Theatre des Varietes in 1867.