Customer Reviews

Offenbach: La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dame Feliicity Lott is absolutely terrific as the title character in this hilarious production. She us having so much fun here and it shows in this wondeful farce. As with her outstanding Helen in the equally funny La Belle Helene, Dame Felicity sparkles as a frustrated woman dying for a romantic fling with a young stud. When she retires from opera she should do comedy. What she could do for Noel Coward.

This is a long production with much added music and the production shines. This DVD is worth the price just for the newly recorded "Carillon" selection that concludes Act 2. It is five minutes of pure hilarity with a wonderful galop that could only be Offenbach.

Dame Felicity is a British national treasure. We should all be happy that she doesn't have the same opinion of Offenbach that Richard Wagner had. Buy - watch - and enjoy.

Hopefully there may be more Offenbach that she can do.

Conductor Marc Minkowski and director Laurent Pelly collaborated in two other highly successful Offenbach productions that are preserved on DVD: La belle Helene (2000) and Orphée aux Enfers (1997). This new production of La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein is the latest Minkowski / Pelly collaboration, and it is as brilliant as the two that preceded it.

Felicity Lott is outstanding as La Grande Duchesse. The voice has lost some of its past quality, mainly in the lower register, but the high notes are impressive as ever. Lott 2000 production of Offenbach's La Belle Helene with Minkowski revealed a great ability and talent as a comic actress. She speaks excellent French with a little bit of a "foreign" pronunciation, which makes her performance funnier. The athletic tenor, Yan Beuron is very good as Fritz, the common soldier, both musically and as an actor. The talented Sandrine Piau is luxury casting as Fritz fiancée, Wanda.

Décor and costumes are beautiful and effective, but the lighting is too dark in several places during Act II. Laurent Pelly, the director and designer, is inspired and brilliant as usual. The ballet sequences are original and great fun too.

Minkowski shapes the music with a great deal of charm and wit. I have in my collection the excellent Plasson recording (1975) with Regine Crespin, Alain Vanzo and Mady Mesple. But Minkowski offers us a more complete text, extra half an hour of beautiful and scintillating music: this is the new Offenbach Edition Keck version of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and it includes numbers like the stunning finale of act II (La Carillon de ma grand-mère and the Couplets de la plume) that were not available before.

Technical quality (picture and sound) is first class.

Urgently recommended!!!

Dame Felicity Lott struck me as all wrong as La Belle Helene, so I wanted to say she's an unqualified howl as La Grande Duchesse. Here, middle age works for her dramatically and vocally, as she struts, leers, and pratfalls the plausible character of a frustrated matronly duchess hilariously brandishing her father's sabre and trying without much success to seduce the handsome young soldiers in her pet army. A virtuoso performance both musically and comically. The other singers, the orchestra, and its enthusiastic conductor also score points. The lavish big-stage production, though a bit complicated, seems authentically Offenbachian in its controlled-chaotic nonsensicality. This show is an obvious precursor of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, complete with its own (singing) Margaret Dumont.

Pure enjoyment and fun. A very talented cast is coupled with an outstanding production that brings out the best in Offenbach's wonderfully tuneful score. The opening credits are straight out of Monty Python and the performance that follows is in the same spirit. If you've never seen a comic opera, this is a great place to start.

An outstanding production of a deligthful opera-bouffe. I showed it to a bunch of opera fans and everybody raved about it. Fabulous entertainment for very little cost! Don't miss it!

Because I had enjoyed La Belle Helene so much and because I had the French CD version of Duchesse (with Crespin) I felt this had to be a winner. Many years ago I saw an English language version; surprisingly I found I enjoyed it immensely even though French operetta like its German and Austrian equivalent don't travel well when translated, Well, the version under consideration didn't travel well to this auditor. Aside from the production which looked "low rent", Pelly's direction was of the "wink wink nudge nudge" school. Everything was underlined, exaggerated, and grotesque. I adore Lott but she was directed to overdo all her gestures and schticks. When it came to simply singing, I have no criticism, but there is a lot of dialogue and little inspiration or imagination employed.

I hate to be negative, but I frankly doubt whether I will play this DVD very often.

I think the great success of this production is owed to the stage direction of Laurent Pelly and the choreography of Laura Scozzi as much as the great performances of the principal players. I could imagine how tedious this light-hearted, three act farce could have been in the wrong hands. But, it was in the best hands!

The slapstick story moves right along with scene after scene of hilarious dance numbers and absurd costumes and scenery. Felicity Lott was supremely funny in the title role and gave a great singing and dancing performance. Equally demanding were the roles of Sandrine Piau as Wanda and Yann Beuron as Fritz, which both acquitted superbly. Le Baron Puck of Franck Leguerinel, Le Prince Paul of Eric Huchet and Le General Boum of Francois La Roux were athletically as well as vocally great.

This has to be seen to be appreciated. The hilarious ballet at the beginning of Act III was actually outdone at the next change of scene. I laughed out loud continuously; it was funny, inventive, absurd. Imagine twenty men wearing executioners' masks and the Baron, the Prince and General Boum, all huddled together in the bedroom planning the impending murder of General Fritz. Do you think he would notice them?

This production rolled right along with Offenbach's rolicking music under Marc Minkowski's direction and Laurent Pelly's inspiration. Pelly is the one to watch for in the future. It seems that everything he touches turns to gold!

I agree with the other reviewers here who are delighted by the hilariously nuanced performance of Dame Felicity Lott. Although there are a number of operas in which experienced (read `middle-aged') female singers can appear, for example The Merry Widow, there are few where `a certain age' is an absolute requirement and deportment a true asset. La Grande-Duchesse is one such work where the star needs to be not only a great singer but also a talented actress in that most difficult of all fields, comedy. It is a shear delight to watch Dame Felicity control the stage with her marching about, berating her costars, and all the comic asides that she injects throughout this longish opera.

The audio and video in this the first Virgin DVD disk I have viewed is exemplary and can be used to demonstrate not only a home theater system's abilities, but also to show those not terribly interested in opera just how amusing and entertaining it can be. Prior to reading the reviews here, this work was completely unknown to me, however it only took a very short time to appreciate the catchy tunes and melodies that Offenbach had distributed freely throughout the work.

Normally I would tend to criticize the abstract stage-sets such as used in this performance, but here they seem appropriate and work perfectly. The uneven ground of the trenches in the first act gives way to the strange living accommodation of the Grande-Duchess with its exposed staircases climbing in all directions, to the beach scene in the last act. Although in my opinion this work would be considerably lessened without the star vehicle of Dame Felicity, the entire ensemble with all their individual eccentricities contribute enormously to this show's success. Mention should also be made of the dance routine performed by the soldiers in the trench, completely unexpected and very funny. I can do nothing but highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys light opera.

Most of the reviewers here find this one a great first opera to show friends. It is a little over the top with clownishness; but you know, so was I Love Lucy, or The Honeymooners. And that, perhaps is what most find highly entertaining or amusing, and thus it becomes a nice escape from drudgery. Also, I have been so thrilled and surprised by the likes of Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini, and some more rare composers, that this only seems flippant by comparison. It does contain good music and great vocals; and some pretty impressive choreography.