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Music Text

Libretto by Charles Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu; original German version by Julius Hopp; new English version by Charles Lamb Kenney (lyrics) & Richard Duployen (dialogue) (F,G,E)

Scoring

5S,5T,2B,4speaking roles; chorus;
2(I=picc).1.2.1–2.2.1.0–timp.perc(3)–strings

Abbreviations (PDF)

Publisher

Boosey & Hawkes / Bote & Bock

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.

Availability

World Premiere
31/07/1869
Kurtheater, Baden-Baden
Conductor: Jacques Offenbach
Company: Singers of the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris / Kurorchester Baden-Baden

World premiere of version
28/03/2015
Theater, Baden-Baden
Anna Drescher, director
Conductor: Stanley Dodds
Company: Orchester Akademie & Mitglieder der Berliner Philharmoniker

Roles

PRINCE KASIMIR Tenor
RAPHAEL, his son Tenor
SPARADRAPP, Raphael's educator speaking role
CABRIOLO, director of a company of tightrope walkers Bass Baritone
ZANETTA and REGINA, his daughters Sopranos
PAOLA, his sister Mezzo-Soprano
TREMOLINI, a clown Tenor
Director of the lottery Bass
Circus audience, peasants
Synopsis

Harmless and boisterous as the plot may be, it still derives from one basic idea: a poor, merry company of tightrope walkers suddenly becomes rich but cannot control its longing for the old vagabond life. The poor company of travelling entertainers, glittering with trumpery, whom we see at work drawing up the curtain, is depicted with a fresh realism. The second act is a funny opposite of the first one: the whole family of tightrope walkers strutting as the new "lordships" in the splendid castle gardens of the villa, dressed up with ridiculous elegance. Despite all the luxury, the good people are awfully bored. "Do you believe, Papa," Regina asks the old man who plays a cavalier, "that I do not notice you sneaking into the garden at night to do somersaults? And did you not climb onto the ropes hung up for clothes and then secretly eat fire in the kitchen only yesterday?" (Eduard Hanslick)

Press Quotes

"...a compendium of everything that Offenbach had achieved... a score that races and fizzes like a well-tuned steam train and telling teases about upwardly mobile social ambitions and an infantilised ruling class."
BBC Music Magazine

Moods

Comic

Subjects
Recommended Recording
cd_cover

Virginie Verrez, Anne-Catherine Gillet, Antoinette Dennefeld, Katia Ledoux, Josh Lovell, Christophe Gay, Christophe Mortagne, Loïc Félix / Opera Rara Chorus / London Philharmonic Orchestra / Paul Daniel
Opera Rara ORC63

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Links

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