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Entre Nous: Celebrating Offenbach traces the extraordinary career of one of the great personalities of the 19th century: the composer, entrepreneur and satirist Jacques Offenbach. He composed over 100 stage works, yet only a fraction of Offenbach’s output is regularly performed today.
This new recording assembles some of the finest moments from forgotten works – arias, duets and ensembles – performed by a glittering array of singing stars. Offenbach’s composing life was driven by commercial success. He opened his first theatre, the Bouffes-Parisiens, in 1855 with a mission to revive the art of high-quality comic opera. Yet the notorious jester who spent so much time poking fun at the leading figures of his day longed to be taken seriously by the musical establishment. He pinned great hopes on his works for the Opéra-Comique, including the delightful Vert-Vert, which brought him closer to his ‘serious’ style. Along the way there is much Offenbachian charm and wit; discover the once wildly popular Geneviève de Brabant, the risqué La Jolie Parfumeuse, and Le Roi Carotte, where Prince Fridolin’s kingdom is taken over by vegetables! Find out about the personalities of Offenbach’s world – including Hortense Schneider, whose life-story is dramatised in the preposterous La Diva!
This two CD set is accompanied by a 240 page booklet containing notes and texts for each excerpt by Offenbach enthusiast Nicholas Jenkins.
Jacques Offenbach: Le voyage dans la lune
Le voyage dans la lune: Overture
Jacques Offenbach: Genevieve de Brabant
Genevieve de Brabant: Salut, salut, noble assemblee, je vous apporte un remede certain
Jacques Offenbach: La jolie parfumeuse
Je peins, je crayonne et dessine
Pardieu! C'est une aimable charge, que der servir un grand seigneur
Air de Polacca: Cher et noble La Cocardiere
Jacques Offenbach: Le pont des soupirs
Le pont des soupirs: Ah! le Doge, ah! les ponts, le canal Orfano
Jacques Offenbach: Les braconniers
Les braconniers: Oh! Ma chere femme!
Jacques Offenbach: La permission de dix heures
Ah! Quelle douce ivresse, dans l'ombre et le secret
Allons! Ne vous desolez pas, puisqu'aussi bien la chose est faite
Jacques Offenbach: Vert-vert
Vert-vert: Les braconniers: Oh! Ma chere femme!
Jacques Offenbach: Les deux pecheurs
Les deux pecheurs: Vert-vert: Les braconniers: Oh! Ma chere femme!
Jacques Offenbach: La creole
La creole: J'avais bien vu votre tendresse, que vous m'aimiez avec ivresse
Jacques Offenbach: Monsieur et Madame Denis
Monsieur et Madame Denis: Dansons la chaconne, l'air resonne
Jacques Offenbach: Le voyage dans la lune
Je suis nerveuse, je suis fievreuse
Courons tous, courons vite. Ils vont nous echapper
Jacques Offenbach: Belle Lurette
Ce fut a Londres que mon pere
Je n'aime pas a faire das facons, mais vous savez combien
Jacques Offenbach: La diva
L'air, disait-il, est compose d'oxygene et surtout d'azote
Tu la connais ma douce maitresse, la blonde Lischen
Chez nous la vie est si douce, douce, douce, douce
Jacques Offenbach: Les bergers
En attendant l'hymen donnez-moi z'un coup d'main
Reconnais-tu la voix d'Annette coeur de mon Colin
Le voyage dans la lune
Je regarde vos jolis yeux, votre main si douce et si blanche
Ohe! Ohe! Les badauds!
Jacques Offenbach: La rose de Saint-Flour
La rose de Saint-Flour: Chette marmite neuve, mamjel', est une preuve
Jacques Offenbach: Boule de neige
Boule de neige: Mais ne parlons pas si haut!
Jacques Offenbach: L'ile de Tulipatan
L'ile de Tulipatan: Prince doux et fort debonnaire
Jacques Offenbach: La boulangere a des ecus
Ce qu' j'ai? tu le demandes?
Ah! Qu'il est beau ce gaillard-la!
Jacques Offenbach: Une nuit blanche
Une nuit blanche: Allons, Fanchette, allons! Versez, ma menagere!
Jacques Offenbach: Il Signor Fagotto
Il Signor Fagotto: Nous voila seuls, vive le tete-a-tete
La creole
La creole: Petit noir dans la case chaude, "Berceuse"
Jacques Offenbach: Maitre Peronilla
Maitre Peronilla: Pedro le petit bohemien, la coqueluche des fillettes
Jacques Offenbach: Le fifre enchante, ou Le soldat magicien
Oui, ce fifre est un talisman
Ah! Pour moi, c'etait un fete
Jacques Offenbach: Le chateau a Toto
Va-t-en donc chercher les gendarmes
Entre nous, je suis ce qu'on nomme
Jacques Offenbach: Le Roi Carotte
Le Roi Carotte: Dans ce grand temple des voyages
Vert-vert
Vert-vert: Le bateau marchait lentement, "Barcarolle"
Boule de neige
Boule de neige: L'Hospodar nous invite a luncher avec lui, lunchons!
Belle Lurette
Belle Lurette: Colett' sur le lavoir s'en alla danser un beau soir
November 2007
*****
“Too many highlights to choose from, but for starters there's Diana Montague and Mark le Brocq in a winning duet from Les Braconniers, Laura Claycomb's peerless vocalism in the haunting extract from Monsieur et Madame Denis, the train journey ensemble from Le Roi Carotte, and many more. Indispensable for Offenbach fans.”
November 2007
“All but dedicated misanthropes will find this set entrancing; highly recommended.”
2010
“Offenbach composed over 100 works for the stage, only a few of which have been recorded complete. This groundbreaking set offers 41 extracts from two dozen comic operas from the master of irony and melody, ranging from the early Une nuit blanche – which was on the bill at the opening night of Les Bouffes Parisiens in 1855 – to elaborate spectacles such as Les bergers, an essay in time travel from ancient Greece to modern France, Vert-Vert, which features a dead parrot, and Le voyage dans la lune, in which the Moonfolk catch that dirty disease from Earth – love. Offenbach tailored all his operas to particular performers, and it is a challenge to modern singers to find their own way of suggesting the outsize personalities of such stars as Hortense Schneider and Zulmar Bouffar. Colin Lee is splendid in an aria written for Etienne Pradeau in La rose de Saint-Flour, in which a stuttering coppersmith brings a cooking-pot as a gift to his beloved. Yvonne Kenny and Alexandra Sherman offer the contrasting personalities of the two heroines of La créole, while Jennifer Larmore takes on the shade of Schneider in La diva, with an outrageous parody of the Act 2 finale of Latraviata. From Geneviève de Brabant comes a nifty little rondo about a pâté, sung by Cassandre Berthon, and Offenbach's first opera based on a story by ETA Hoffmann, Le roi carotte, gives us a 'Ronde de chemins de fer', one of the earliest operatic train journeys. Le fifre enchanté has a giddy coloratura marching song which Laura Claycomb negotiates with panache. Even from the extracts it's easy to gauge the thin line Offenbach and his librettists were treading visà- vis the censors with works like La jolie parfumeuse (hear Mark Stone sing 'Pardieu!'), LesBraconniers – Diana Montague in a typical Bouffar moment celebrating her lover's 'grosse frimousse' – and L'île de Tulipatan, a satire on the folly of emperors, as Loïc Félix as King Cacatois sings about gossip columns. All but dedicated misanthropes will find this set entrancing; highly recommended.”
Le voyage dans la lune: Overture
