Beware of Offenbach operetta: it’s got teeth. Beneath La Périchole’s fluffy exterior of hummable melodies and schmaltzy waltz tunes lies a dark heart of vindictive fury against the inequalities of the day and the puffed grandiosity of a dictator who is ludicrous but lethal, surrounded by corrupt, self-interested flunkeys. In Offenbach’s day, the target was Napoleon III; today, it could be Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Kim Jong-un or countless others.
At the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre start us off in the most deceptively fluffy manner imaginable. The operetta is set in Peru, so we get faux-Spanish bullring music that fizzes with energy, switching in an instant to romantic sweep and then to the most gorgeously nostalgic of violin solos. We are completely off our guard once the action starts.
Director Laurent Pelly and set designer Chantal Thomas place every scene under a portrait of the dictator that is so gigantic that we never see the whole face, just a nose and mouth. The opera opens with a joyful crowd number where the masses are drunkenly singing the praises of the viceroy Don Andrès de Ribeira, who is visiting Lima. It would all be good knockabout fun except for the fact that the crowd are being paid in cash and liquor to sing as loudly as they can by Don Pedro de Hinoyosa, the Governor of Lima, and his sidekick Don Miguel. The whole thing is historically close to the bone, lampooning Napoleon’s excursions from his palace to receive the acclaim of carefully orchestrated crowds. It’s also a weird analogue of the opening scene of Boris Godunov, which Mussorgsky was just beginning to write in 1868, the year of La Périchole’s premiere.
Enter two street singers, penniless and starving: Périchole and her boyfriend Piquillo. Don Andrès encounters Périchole and is desperate to make her his mistress; she, in turn, is equally desperate for a hot meal. Much hilarity ensues in a suitably daft series of shenanigans, performed with gusto by the whole cast.
Antoinette Dennefeld threw herself into the sassy and somewhat punk persona of Périchole, streetwise and sarcastic but with a heart of gold, a rough diamond who can none the less win us over with a romantic ballad. Stanislas de Barbeyrac was equally smooth voiced as the goofy but hunky Piquillo. Operetta patter numbers aren’t really Laurent Naouri’s thing, but he excelled in his characterisation of the dictator who is urbane and charming one moment and turns to viciousness in a heartbeat. Just about every one of the cast deserves a name-check for great comic acting and enjoyable singing, but I’ll limit myself to Rodolphe Briand and Lionel Lhote as the viceroy’s flunkeys, and Chloé Briot, Alix Le Saux and Eléonore Pancrazi as the “three cousins” who run the bar. The chorus (from the Opéra National de Bordeaux) were a constant source of vitality.
Pelly’s direction is sure-footed throughout, playing things for laughs one moment and darkening the mood the next. The cousins do a splendid triple act of keeping the crowd lubricated; the crowd are knowing, shamelessly manipulating Don Andrès and his flunkeys. The process of getting the two lovers (separately) drunk is handled hilariously – Périchole in wedding dress, the recalcitrant Piquillo being force-fed his liquor. The viceroy’s court is a nightmare vision of a hall of mirrors filled with identikit blonde courtesans in silver dresses. For the Act 3 prison scene, Offenbach goes surreal with a trio between the two lovers and their jailer, which Pelly stages as a Pythonesque music hall dance.
Throughout this, whether we’re laughing at the humour or grimacing at its darkness, Minkowski and the orchestra were impossibly seductive: there was verve, schmaltz, lilt and sweetness. I’ve never heard Offenbach played better.
The action does flag a little in Act 2 – which is a pity, because it makes the whole show lose momentum after the perfect setup in Act 1. Fortunately, things pick up again in Act 3 for the prison scene, which is cheerfully entertaining, as is the ensuing Enlightenment-style “the evil overlord shows mercy” conclusion. In this production, the chorus follow the ending with a glorious Offenbach gallop to round up the evening and leave us all with a broad grin on our faces.
