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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Offenbach: Le Pont des Soupirs
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:
Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is the father of operetta. He wrote dozens of French operettas (the hometown of operetta is really Paris, not Vienna), only a very few of which are still performed today. This is surely a shame, because all of Offenbach's oeuvre is so tuneful. Offenbach's Les Pont des Soupirs ("The Bridge of Sighs," 1868) is certainly the model for Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers. The setting for both operettas is Venice. Offenbach's Venetian-style opéra bouffe has plenty of ridiculous conspiracy and intrigue.
To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of its premiere, French National Radio and TV taped a realization of "The Bridge of Sighs," which has been drawn from their archives for issue on CD by Bourg Records. Jean Doussard conducts the Orchestre Lyrique of RTF. Monaural sound. I last presented this Bourg release on Sunday, July 8, 1990.