Offenbach - La Vie Parisienne

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Tuesday January 4 2022

Conductor: Romain Dumas. Production, sets and costumes: Christian Lacroix, assisted by Laurent Delvert and Romain Gilbert. Choreography: Glyslein Lefever. Lighting: Bertrand Couderc. Gabrielle: Jodie Devos. Gardefeu: Rodolphe Briand. Bobinet: Marc Mauillon. Le Baron: Franck Leguérinel. La Baronne: Marion Grange. Métella: Aude Extrémo. Le Brésilien/Gontran/Frick: Eric Huchet. Urbain/Alfred: Philippe Estèphe. Pauline: Elena Galitskaya. Clara: Louise Pingeot. Bertha: Marie Kalinine. Madame de Quimper-Karadec: Ingrid Perruche. Joseph/Alphonse/Prosper: Carl Ghazarossia. Madame de Folle-Verdure: Caroline Meng. Les Musiciens du Louvre – Académie des Musiciens du Louvre, in partnership with the Atlantique youth orchestra. Namur chamber choir.

Photo: Vincent Pontet

The Palazzetto Bru Zane has been doing some great work ('doing the Lord's work', as a darling old lady in New York put it just the other day, after enjoying the present show on TV) over the past few years restoring and/or reviving opéra bouffe, and I try to keep up with their efforts. Rediscovering Hervé has been a particular pleasure. This time, they're presenting a new, reconstructed edition of the original 1866 five-act version of La Vie Parisienne (leading to a tussle over precedence with Jean-Christophe Keck, who insists the Palazzetto's claims of novelty are exaggerated) in its original orchestration, and a production by fashion designer Christian Lacroix, his first I believe. So I struggled back from the UK after Christmas and the New Year, squeezing arthritically through all the Covid-induced hoops international travel now entails, to be there on Tuesday night.

Lacroix's production is opulent (the costumes in particular, not unexpectedly) but fairly conventional. For a first effort, it's certainly better than it might have been, but, as is often the case in my experience when people embark on their first opera, not without a fair dose of déjà-vu. It has a single basic set: an open steel structure recalling Paris's old market buildings, and a two-storey tower on the left with a lift in a red cage to the fore and a spiral staircase behind. Projections at the rear, fabrics or printed sheets lowered in, and props carried on and off à vue enable changes of setting: railway station, apartments, a circus-like space with garlands of flags and merry-go-round horses representing the restaurant in the final act. There are a few deliberately anachronistic touches, such as a 70s vinyl chair, but basically we're under the Second Empire. The curtain and some of the printed sheets seem inspired by the recent vogue, in the art world, for photographs of grand but decaying buildings - derelict theatres in particular. The lighting is low (too low?) and warm.

Offenbach

The directing and declamation is largely in the exaggerated, noisy style of French popular comedy, the Théâtre de Boulevard - I had a message on WhatsApp from a friend saying 'Saw bits on the telly (...) and all that boulevard theatre shouting and screaming made me turn off' - but without descending, as Jérôme Savary used to do, into vulgar pantomime slapstick. Extending the switching of roles that’s a mainstay of the plot to gender, comme il se doit these days - though in Offenbach it's been done for decades - the male dancers sometimes wear tutus and, at one point, in perilous red stilettos, parody the weird loping gait, one foot crossing the other, shoulders back and looking grim, of anorexic models on a catwalk. 

The dancers are usually dressed in fairly simple black and white. But the singers' costumes are exuberant in the extreme and instantly recognisable as Lacroix's: tartans clashing with tartans, cascades of da-glo chiffon tumbling out of tweeds, stripes, feathers, polka dots, crinolines, leg-of-mutton sleeves, ruching, unmatched stockings, exaggerated wigs, hats of all shades and sizes, magnificent weeds for the widow and an equally magnificent red-and-cyclamen décolleté gown for Métella... And the plot and its characters allow Lacroix to run riot through a kaleidoscope of references to folk costumes from around the world, beautifully executed in gorgeous fabrics, some of them no doubt among the most beautiful - and in some cases charming - costumes I've ever seen.

However... 

 

It isn't easy for any director to fabricate the kind of good-natured giddiness, the 'franche gaîté', Offenbach requires, and to me Lacroix only half succeeded, relying heavily on the experience of Eric Huchet and Franck Leguérinel, seasoned veterans of Pelly's unforgettable Grande Duchesse with Felicity Lott. It might have helped if the director had insisted on Broadway-musical smiles from the dancers; as things are, they look disgruntled and sneering, as if they find the show ringard or beneath their dignity, and are only there for the work. Also, I agree with Forum Opéra that strong individual characterisation of the rest of the principals gets somehow drowned in the mass of costumes, greasepaint, wigs and whiskers. I admit I wasn't always sure who was who. And for a production that's already travelled before arriving in Paris, it took an awfully long time to warm up. An eminent contributor to a US blog, who saw it earlier, mused 'maybe the whole thing is better oiled by now?' Well, oddly, no. Oddly, too, in the end the production felt dated, as if Lacroix's designs took us back to his 'Ab-Fab' heyday, the early 90s.

It isn't easy, either, to find a cast of singers with the right vaudeville mix of singing and comic-acting skills. Again, Huchet and Leguérinel knew exactly what they were at on both counts. Jodie Devos was a charming, convincing Gabrielle, and Aude Extrémo's dark, gravelly Métella, while quite weird, was interesting. Others navigated the score with greater or lesser ease. The orchestral sound, where I sat, wasn't especically crisp, but I got the impression they played with less distinct personality and less active participation than under Minkowski. Romain Dumas has assisted him and conducts opera regularly, but lacked his predecessor's vim and vigour: this sounded to me like a parlour performance, not true bouffe and when Dumas came on stage for his calls, he looked curiously out of place, like a vicar stumbling on an orgy in the vestry.

The great thing was, nevertheless, to hear the full work - quotations from Don Giovanni included. I disagree with those who complain of 'longueurs': there are none. Even my neighbour, who spent the first hour and forty minutes on a hard strapontin, said time had flown. The composer and his score (and the spectacular costumes) are the stars of this show.

No problem with 'franche gaîté' here: Maestro Wenarto leads his usual troupe of willing youngsters.