La Princesse de Trébizonde (OEK critical edition)

Libretto by Charles Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu; original German version by Julius Hopp; new English version by Charles Lamb Kenney (lyrics) & Richard Duployen (dialogue) (F,G,E)

5S,5T,2B,4speaking roles; chorus;
2(I=picc).1.2.1–2.2.1.0–timp.perc(3)–strings

Harmless and boisterous as the plot may be, it still derives from one basic idea: a poor, merry company of tightrope walkers suddenly becomes rich but cannot control its longing for the old vagabond life. The poor company of travelling entertainers, glittering with trumpery, whom we see at work drawing up the curtain, is depicted with a fresh realism. The second act is a funny opposite of the first one: the whole family of tightrope walkers strutting as the new "lordships" in the splendid castle gardens of the villa, dressed up with ridiculous elegance. Despite all the luxury, the good people are awfully bored. "Do you believe, Papa," Regina asks the old man who plays a cavalier, "that I do not notice you sneaking into the garden at night to do somersaults? And did you not climb onto the ropes hung up for clothes and then secretly eat fire in the kitchen only yesterday?" (Eduard Hanslick)

"...a compendium of everything that Offenbach had achieved... a score that races and fizzes like a well-tuned steam train and telling teases about upwardly mobile social ambitions and an infantilised ruling class."
BBC Music Magazine

Comic