Offenbach - Orphee aux Enfers
by Laurent Pelly
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Laurent Naouri, Martine Olméda, Natalie Dessay, Yann BeuronDirector: Laurent Pelly
Producer: François Duplat
Writer: Agathe Mélinand
Writer: Hector Crémieux
Writer: Ludovic Halévy
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Italian (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-11-17
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Arthaus Musik
Movie Reviews of Offenbach - Orphee aux Enfers
Movie Review: Jacques Offenbach, Orphee aux Enfers
Summary: 5 Stars
JACQUES OFFENBACH'S ORPHÉE AUX ENFERS (ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD)
a production by the Opéra National de Lyon, ArtHaus Music, 2009.
I was not familiar with this work when I bought it. I only ordered it because Natalie Dessay is in it. The box calls it an Opera Buffa. Were Offenbach German, for a second or so I thought it might have been called a singspiel. [The word in German means 'sing-play'. But believe me it bears little relationship to the singspiel I know best, The Marriage of Figaro, so I abandoned that notion post-haste. Singspiels are in every way an opera except in an opera the connections between arias and other melodic parts are declaimed as recitatives, usually accompanied by harpsichord, cello, or orchestra, whereas in a singspiel they are spoken. A recitative is vaguely similar to a chant. Very vaguely.]The liner notes claim Orphe'''e was the first operetta when it premiered in 1858. Whatever the appropriate category, I call it outrageous, x-rated fun, full of comedy, farce, and slapstick.
The story is a takeoff on the myth of Orpheus in the Underworld, where he goes to retrieve his wife, Eurydice. I shall not betray the plot and spoil your fun, but here are some of the incidentals that make it a sketch: The cast all have Dr. Spock ears. The Corps de Ballet is composed of men and women, both in traditional ballet dress. Two of the chorus are visibly pregnant. The Greek dramatic `Chorus' is replaced by `Public Opinion', a woman who reminds me of a prude in my childhood church. Jupiter (called `Jupie' by his relatives, gods and demi-gods on Olympus) is at war with Pluto (his brother and the god of the underworld). Juno, Jupiter's wife, runs around in an old fashioned corset (or something like that; I am not too up on women's underclothes of times before the present) and turns out to be bald. The Olympiad gods, demi-gods, and relatives of Jubie's revolt against the boredom of heaven and of having his providing them only with nectar and ambrosia, instead of the Lyon sausage brought up to Olympus by Pluto from Hades, in snowshoes, using ski poles. Venus and Cupid return in the early morning to Olympus after separate one night stands on earth. There is a drunken orgy in this afterword. And Eurydice and a giant fly make love all the while singing `Zz. Zz. Zz."
The music ranges from the intricate, complicated, and adroit to the familiar (Can-Can). All of the voices are superb, with Dessay at her usual brilliant best as coloratura and actress (in this case, comedienne).
This production of the Ope'ra National de Lyon was recorded live in 1997. Dessay, singing with it, relative to the Op'era de Paris reminds me of Beverly Sills at the New York City Opera relative to the Metropolitan Opera. I respectfully suggest that you watch it with a bunch of your musically aware buds with lots of wine flowing. You will understand why I say this by the end of the show.
Dessay is an operatic genius, if one is permitted to speak this way. Most singers, when they play a role, make it plain they are first and foremost singers, not actors. Even the best of them, in which the acting is superb, never let you forget their primary occupation. Not Natalie Dessay. When she acts I forget she is a coloratura par excellence. I forget even that she is acting. She is her role, whether in DVD's as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann (the funniest characterization I ever saw in an opera) or as Mad Ophelia in Hamlet (where the audience with incessant clapping will not, absolutely will not let her arise from the floor at the conclusion of the scene). But the voice is always there. No matter how her body is contorted by the Director or she is moving about to express the role, it is ever the same--beyond belief.
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