Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Offenbach: Fantasio

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Viennese operetta actually arose from the mid nineteenth century French opera comique. Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), a German by birth, became the prolific master composer in that Gallic genre in the 1850s. Many of these light operas, first produced in Paris, went directly to the operatic stage in Vienna. The composer himself is quoted as commenting, "I write my music in Paris, but it is in Vienna that I hear it played."

Orphee aux Enfers (1858) is certainly one of his most famous works in the bouffe mode. But "Orpheus in the Underworld" is a zany satire, somewhat removed from the true French comic opera. Offenbach's classic creation in that line is Fantasio (1872). Not that Mousset's and Nuitter's libretto is any less frivolous than what you'd expect of the genre. Fantasio is a young student who disguises himself as a jester, and in so doing manages to gain the love of a princess. The title role was originally taken by a mezzo, Celestine Galli-Marie, who would shortly go on to become the first Carmen in Bizet's immortal opera.

Offenbach's complete score for Fantasio was pieced together from widely scattered and fragmentary source material. The world premiere studio recording, complete with spoken word dialog in French, was released on two compact discs last year by Opera Rara, the British record company dedicated to recovering, restoring, recording, and performing the forgotten operatic heritage of the nineteenth century. Sir Mark Elder directs the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment and Opera Rara Chorus, with a cast of British singers.