Comments on: The History of Jacques Offenbach’s “La Princesse de Trébizonde”

By: Kurt Gänzl

Kurt Gänzl — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 03:22:33 +0000

As always, Mons/HerrOffenbacn is credited/blamed for the work of his (brilliant) librettists.

By: Boris Kehrmann

Boris Kehrmann — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 11:32:24 +0000

Well, no: It’s a touching musical story about innocence. About a prince who falls in love with a doll (there are hilarious puns in the dialogue: une princesse du cire). That’s why the female choir of multiplied Cherubino-pages pokes fun of him in a most romantically ironic way at the beginning of act 3 (!: 2nd version; that’s an example of the typical Offenbach female act openers you also have in Fantasio, Périchole, Geneviève du Brabant, Vie parisienne etc.). And that’s why he has a most brutal father introduced by a hilarious couplet du canne in act 2. It was not by chance that great Jürgen Fehling did choose this piece for his annual christmas pantomime production at the Städtische Oper Berlin (Charlottenburg) as a “gift” to the “Neo-Prussian” vulgo Nazi reaction in 1932.

I don’t think, it’s about sauciness (except the typical travesty roles and the colombina skirts allowing the male audiences to look at the legs of the ladies). It’s a satire on the start up fantasies of the bourgeoisie and as always with Offenbach at these times it’s about his anxieties about violence and war.

By: Kevin Clarke

Kevin Clarke — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 10:37:27 +0000

By all accounts from Vienna: Miss Gallmeyer seems to have been very extravagantly ‘burlesque’ in the title role, which is luckily documented in a great many photographs. So, as usual, it’s a question of how you perform your Offenbach ‘classics.’ Personally, I’d vote for the over-the-top Gallmeyer approach, always. Considering that the show was especially successful in Vienna (with Miss G) that might be the best way to go.