Word: offenbacher
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...Offenbach's La Périchole, with Patrice Munsel, Theodor Uppman, Cyril Ritchard...
...officially that I am the only performer who has ever been engaged by the Metropolitan Opera in spite of his voice." So writes Cyril Ritchard in a Met program note. At any rate, the Met hired him to stage and star in its new production of Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole, and Manager Rudolf Bing has rarely had a better idea. Actor Ritchard's singing may only be an educated guess ("My voice has four legitimate notes," he says, "the rest is just growl"), but he makes up for it in agility, style...
...richole, never before done at the Met and rarely seen in the U.S. anywhere, replaced Die Fledermaus as the Met's showpiece operetta and special New Year's Eve attraction. The score is second-rate Offenbach, first performed in 1868, well after the glories of La Belle Helens (1864) and Orpheus (1858); but it is still the work of a master in his field. The libretto is by two hacks of genius, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, who vaguely based it (as they did their celebrated book for Carmen) on a work by Prosper...
...goes Orpheus in the Underworld, Jacques Offenbach's delightful spoof of Greek mythology, presented in English by the New York City Opera Company last week. The stylishly scant scenery (including a tricky, tilted revolving stage) is handsome; the staging is often funny; and the music is as charming as it was 100 years ago. Under the firm and concise direction of Vienna-born Erich Leinsdorf, 44, who left the Rochester Philharmonic to become the City Center's new musical director, the brilliant score is beautifully played. The trouble with Orpheus is its new libretto, which seemed determined...
...male counterpart, Don Giovanni; 5) Carmen in Korea. Each time one of the old operatic favorites looms, Mrs. Peltz and her two assistants push back the jungle of operatic ignorance a bit farther. When something old but new, e.g., next season's La Périchole (Offenbach), never before performed by the Met, comes up, the possibility of doing some spadework in virgin soil goes to her head "like wine...