 | No. 299 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast299 |
=====================================================================
Already our last Blog and Podcast for 2018!
To end the year on a high note, I programmed light music by
the German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach – both his own and
ballet music orchestrating some of his finest moments.
Offenbach was born in Germany of a musician father, cantor
of a synagogue. Early on, Jacob Offenbach showed himself adept at the cello,
which convinced his father to send him to study in Paris. Offenbach joined the
Conservatoire to become a soloist, but his clownish behavior saw him leaving
after a year. Thanks to his talent, he still performs in concert - after having
francized his given name - then joins the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique
in which he plays while establishing himself as a composer.
He made himself known thanks to light melodies, and became
director of the Comédie Française in 1847. Eight years later, he decided
to open his own theater to produce his works: the Salle des
Bouffes-Parisiens, in 1855. This is where his first opera buffa, Orpheus
in the Underworld (1858), was successfully premiered. His subsequent operas (La Grande-Duchesse de
Gérolstein, La Vie parisienne, Les Brigands) are just as
popular. Attentive to the taste of the public, Offenbach then turns to
the opera-bouffe-féérie (Le Roi Carotte) and then to the patriotic opera
(La Fille du Tambour-Major).
Offenbach died a few months before the premiere of the opera
that would bring him the recognition he so longed for, The Tales of Hoffmann
- one of the most played French operas today.
In the first part of our podcast, I chose a handful of
Offenbach’s Opera and Operetta overtures. Many of them, following the usual
medley style, provide hints to some of Offenbach’s Greatest Hits, many of whom
are found in the final piece covering the latter half of the podcast.
Gaîté Parisienne (literally, "Parisian
Gaiety") was first presented by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at
its home theatre on 5 April 1938 (this troupe, formed after Diaghilev’s death,
can be thought of as the offspring of his Ballets Russes, with many of
his surviving collaborators on hand).
The ballet was commissioned and choreographed by Léonide
Massine. Performed in one act, the ballet does not have a conventional
narrative. Instead, it depicts the amorous flirtations, convivial dancing, and
high spirits of a diverse group of people who patronize a fashionable Paris
café one evening during the period of the Second Empire (1851–1870). Members of
various social classes are among the participants.
Massine tasked his friend, composer and conductor Manuel
Rosenthal, with orchestrating and arranging the score using music Offenbach; he
did so in collaboration with Jacques Brindejonc-Offenbach, the composer's
nephew. They created 19
distinct numbers some of which are often omitted in commercial recordings.
However, to the best of my knowledge, the recording I used in today’s podcast
(by the Montreal Symphony) retains all of them.
I think you will love this music too
No comments:
Post a Comment