Search - Offenbach - La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein / Lott, Piau, Beuron, Le Roux, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski (Theatre du Chatelet) on DVD

A lot of lott is not enough lott

A. Grossman | Florence, Oregon USA | 02/10/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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.



"

This DVD is a knockout!!!

T. C. | 01/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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!!!

"

Monty Python at the Opera

Robert A. Olson | Jupiter FL | 03/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

Very Funny, Great Lott

A. Pfeffer | San Marcos, CA USA | 08/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."