[ Naxos DVD / 2 DVD ]
Release Date: Friday 10 February 2023
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Jacques Offenbach had already achieved fame as an operetta composer by 1866, but that year's premiere of La Vie parisienne was his first portrayal of contemporary Parisian life. With its tale of romantic intrigues, disguises and comic celebrations of the mad gaiety of life in the French capital, La Vie parisienne became popular in the nation's theatres, , but not after a hasty re-working of its final acts after protests from the original performers. With significant new musical discoveries and the final acts restored, this opéra-bouffe masterpiece now speaks for itself given the resources of a superb cast and Christian Lacroix's colourful and much acclaimed Bru Zane France production.
178 minutes
"French operetta composer Jacques Offenbach reached his storytelling zenith with this work about quotidian life and love in the greatest of all cities-it's not titled "Parisian Life" for nothing. And this delectable staging at, appropriately enough, the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, is frothy, fizzy fun. Director Christian Lacroix's dazzling sets and costumes perfectly complement Offenbach's beguiling music (played by Les Musiciens du Louvre under the baton of conductor Romain Dumas), and it's charmingly sung by a superlative cast. There's first-rate hi-def video and audio." FlipSide
"It's the ladies who really make things ping...Jodie Devos brings a delightfully bright, fruity soprano to the glovemaker Gabrielle (every inch the soubrette, in her pink ankle-boots) and Aude Extrémo sounds dangerously smoky and ripe as the dominatrix-like courtesan Métella." Gramophone