Customer Reviews

Brigands Chapter VII [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although this operetta is not so wellknown as The Merry Widow or the opera by the composer itself, Le Contes D'Hoffmann, it is not less magnificent and enchanting and we are amazed of the lively and sparkling music that is so beautiful and melodious from beginning to the end. It contains the exotic and specific French accent in the music,and give this operetta an extra-ordinary nuance. It is also sung and performed with such care and excellence, although the singers are not so wellknown outside Europe.
The disappointment only lies in the contemporary costumes which leave us no imagination of the crude and rough gang of bandits, as in here they just look like a bunch of office executives and employees on a union strike rather than a gang of robbers. They were dressed in ties and jacket or pullovers,while the daughter Fiorella and the other ladies were dressed in the contemporary Parisienne's way. Furthermore, the background set consisting of a glass building, fails to describe the sinister hills and woods in which robbers usually live in the old days. When the Duke of Mantua was lost and came crashing down the hill into the valley, he actually came crashing down the ceiling like an ordinary workman, while he misplaced Fiorella as a shepherdess dressed in an elegant formal suitdress. It may be the newest trend to modernized the performance this way, however for this kind of story it would be more fascinating if presented in the original form.
Nevertheless, forget inappropriate costumes or background set, the singing and the music is so delightful and excellent that we enjoy it so much.

Yes, a couple of glasses of champagne make the perfect accompaniment to this 5 star production, but try not to drink the whole bottle like I did (ouch).

Let's get the negatives out of the way first. It has been commented in the previous review that the transposition to 1920s Chicago doesn't work, as the dialogue still refers to mountain passes and dark tunnels etc. This is a spot on observation. However, in it's favour is that all the female characters are dressed in 1920s style, and mighty elegant they look to.

Other than that, not to mention an improbable plot, this production positively sparkles. Michel Trempont is superb as always, not only does he sing well but he also has a very distinctive speaking voice. But the real stars of this production are the two leading female roles, the very beautiful Valerie Chevalier as Fiorella and the warm toned Colette Alliot-Lugaz dressed up throughout as a man. They both have georgeous voices which complement each other perfectly. I have long been an admirer of the latter and am delighted that she is in this production.

Now to the music itself. Well what can I say other than it rips along at a great pace with one memorable tune after another. Whilst this is not one of Offenbachs most well known opera bouffes, it certainly has the greatest concentration of melodious, foot-tapping tunes which will have you humming for days afterwards. I defy anyone not to want to join in.

The cast also look like they were having a great time and putting the orchestra on the stage in the final act worked really well, particularly when the sauve Bernard Pisani took the cellist's chair.

Finally, if anyone watching this DVD wishes that they could have it on CD (believe me, it's fantastic music to cook to) then there is a very similar version directed by John Eliot Gardner available which stars Michel Trempont and Colette Alliot-Lugaz amongst others and is similarly superb.

I really love this production and sincerely hope you do.

An updated version of the operetta, which I normally do not like, but this one worked quite well.
The words didn't always match the picture - but that was to be expected.
The music makes the Operetta and is consistently enjoyable. Very little recitative.
If you like Offenbach, this one can happily be added to your collection.

In the event that this video finds itself re-issued some day or that you can find a library from which to borrow it, I want only to reaffirm the conclusions arrived at by the two reviews which more than adequately describe this musical. It is delightful: music, production, setting and performance combine to provide an evening of pleasure equal to that one would expect of Gilbert and Sullivan or the Marx Brothers.
I differ from the reviewers in only one respect: I find the scenic design perfectly suitable to the comedic intentions of the script. That it transposes the action from mountain passes to luxury hotels only adds to the fun. Non-sense is the order of the day

This is operetta at its frothiest -- bandshell pops music, corny stage business, and a libretto full of topical humor that few listeners in 2011 will recognize as such. Among the umpteen operettas by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), Les Brigands is one of the least melodically artful and surely one of the most anti-climactic. It ends with no aplomb at all, as if dear Jacques simply got tired of his own shenanigans.
The libretto gives us a bandit chief, whose gang is restive about lack of rewards. The chief has a hot daughter, who falls for a puny chocolate-maker victimized by the bandits. The chocolate maker likewise falls for the daughter, boldly demands admission to the band of brigands, and turns out to be recklessly courageous. The daughter and the chocolatier, both sung by women, have the most 'bel canto' arias and provide the most spark on stage. The brigands concoct a scheme to kidnap a Spanish princess en route to her wedding, and to steal the dowry of 3,000,000 francs.

But the plot is hardly tight enough, even for operetta; it's the zany episodes -- the bandits disguising themselves as chefs, for instance -- that excite the audience. For most of us among the living, these episodes are mildly funny in an amiable lace-curtain fashion. I wouldn't advise forcing your teenagers to watch this DVD; they'd slump so deep into the sofa that you'd need spelunking gear to haul them out. The same story line could have turned up in a Rossini opera buffa, or in a short-run Broadway Musical. Rossini would have made it vastly more ingenious, both in music and in humor; this is so true that one might well ask "why bother with Offenbach when Rossini wrote some 38 operas, all of them musically sophisticated beyond the ken of Offenbach.

English and American audiences might likewise wonder why to bother with Offenbach when "our own" Gilbert and Sullivan were so much cleverer and more hummable. I have no answer for that. I also prefer G&S, but then, "when in France, listen as the French do."

Offenbach, Humperdinck, and other light opera composers of the French Second Empire, the era that Emile Zola so ferociously castigated in his novels, were unquestionably the direct ancestors of American musical theater. The big difference -- the difference that a Broadway or Hollywood audience might find uncomfortable -- is that the singers in Offenbach actually SING! with full operatically trained voices, rather than the mostly nasal and deliberately informal bellowing that passes for singing on Broadway stages in recent decades. Andrew Lloyd Webber fans, beware! You'll find the singing in Les Brigands unfashionably schmaltzy.

Zola lambasted the society of Louis Napoleon's Second Empire for its greed, pretentious extravagance, moral decadence, and cynicism. Mention of Offenbach's musical theatrics can be found in sveral of Zola's novels, particularly in "Nana". Indeed, Les Brigands is a virtual proclamation of cynicism. Not only are the 'bandits' comically extolled but also the police, bureaucrats, and all species of respectable citizens are mericilessly denounced as venal hypocrites and shirkers of morality. If this sort of blasé cynicism was the norm of Parisian audiences circa 1869, then Zola was entirely correct in his scorn.

Offenbach's one truly extraordinary compositions was his "Tales of Hoffmann", first staged in 1881. I've already reviewed one DVD of that work. But there are several of his operettas that I for one find more musically interesting and more dramatically engaging than Les Brigands:
Offenbach - Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) / Pretre, Domingo, Royal Opera Covent Garden
Offenbach: La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein
Offenbach: La Belle Hélène
Offenbach: La Vie parisienne