Good for Lotsa Laffs!

It's a real pity that the French opéra-bouffe tradition isn't better known in North America, where the classic English comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan hold sway alongside the operettas of Strauss and Lehar.  If the music of Jacques Offenbach, the genius of opera-bouffe is known at all, it's through the delirious arrangement that Manuel Rosenthal made of excerpts from his operettas, in the ballet called Gaité Parisienne.

Today's subject is an even rarer fish: the first successful opéra-bouffe from Emanuel Chabrier.  Chabrier is better known for his orchestral fantasy Espana, but there's no doubt in my mind that this comic opera, L'Étoile, is out of the top drawer and certainly ought to be better known and more often performed.  It was first performed in 1877 at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, which had been the scene of many of Offenbach's most memorable productions.  My sources assure me that L'Étoile is indeed becoming better known since John Eliot Gardiner made his magnificent recording at the Opéra de Lyon in 1984.

Like any good comic opera, L'Étoile has a plot which is ridiculous but characters which are believable.  The star of the show is mezzo-soprano Colette Alliot-Lugaz in the breeches role of the peddler Lazuli, the young hero who eventually sweeps Princess Laoula off her feet.  Georges Gautier is first-rate in the tenor role of King Ouf, and the veteran bass Gabriel Bacquier is a splendid foil as the astronomer royal and fortune-teller Siroco. 

There are lots of sparkling musical delights in this score -- in fact it's loaded with plums!  But one of my personal favourites is the chorus of welcome for the King in the opening scene ("Vive Ouf, vive notre Ouf" sung at top speed by the chorus in a French equivalent of a G&S patter song).  Another splendid moment comes after Lazuli has been (apparently) drowned in the lake.  The chorus sing their condolences to Laouala but their song quickly evolves into a can-can!  In the final act Lazuli staggers ashore and sings a song in which he sneezes repeatedly while the orchestra wittily echoes his sneezing.  And so on, and so on.  And in the end, because it is comic opera, Lazuli and Laouala are happily married with Ouf's blessing.  This makes King Ouf one of the very few leading tenors in opera history who doesn't get the girl!

EMI reissued Gardiner's classic recording as a 2-CD bargain set a few years back, and that's when I picked it up.  If this sounds appealing to you, grab it fast if you see it!