La Périchole
The opera depicts the mutual love of two impoverished Peruvian street singers – too poor to afford a marriage licence – and a lecherous viceroy, Don Andrès de Ribeira, who wishes to make La Périchole his mistress.
La Perichole was first seen in a two-act version on 6 October 1868 at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, with Hortense Schneider in the title role, José Dupuis as Piquillo and Pierre-Eugène Grenier as the Viceroy.
[4] Another theatrical creation that pre-dates Offenbach's opéra bouffe and may have influenced the piece is a farce by Desforges and Théaulon given on 21 October 1835 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, starring Virginie Déjazet as La Périchole.
[4][5] The title character of La Périchole is based on Micaela Villegas, an 18th-century Peruvian entertainer and the mistress of Manuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776.
[6] The work premiered, in a two-act version, on 6 October 1868, at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, with Hortense Schneider in the title role, José Dupuis as Piquillo and Pierre-Eugène Grenier as the Viceroy.
The piece did reasonably well at the box office, but the plot with its poor and hungry heroine and hero exploited by a tyrannical ruler was seen by some as downbeat compared with Offenbach's more exuberant hits, and two drunk scenes offended some members of the audience.
After the trauma of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 a revised version with a less sarcastic tone was more in accord with Parisian sensibilities, while La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein was banned for its anti-militaristic satire.
[13] The most recent (2022) major production in Paris was at the Opéra-Comique with Stéphanie d'Oustrac (La Périchole), Philippe Talbot (Piquillo) and Tassis Christoyannis (Don Andrès de Rebeira).
[21] The Buxton Festival, with the Northern Chamber Orchestra under Andrew Greenwood, and Richard Coxon as Piquillo, Victoria Simmonds in the title role, Eric Roberts as Viceroy, staged the work in 2002.
A contemporary reviewer wrote: In 1977 at Stockholm's Södra Teatern (in Swedish) Elisabeth Söderström took the title-role, with Jonny Blanc as Piquillo, and Hans Alfredson as the Viceroy, with Birgit Nordin, Sylvia Lindenstrand, Ileana Peterson and Carl Johan Falkman.
[27] The Vienna Volksoper mounted a new production of the piece in 1992,[8] and it was seen in 1998 in Zurich with Philippe Duminy as Don Andres, Deon van der Walt as Piquillo, and Vesselina Kasarova as La Périchole.
[28] The Plaza In the main square of Lima, outside The Three Cousins tavern, the crowd is celebrating the birthday of Don Andrès de Ribeira, the Viceroy of Peru.
After the 1868 premiere the reviewer in Le Figaro praised the piece for "its verve, its grace and its wit": When Schneider's company presented the piece in London in 1870 the reviewer in The Pall Mall Gazette commented that it was essentially the plot of La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein in reverse: in the latter the foibles of a female ruler with a roving eye were displayed and in the new work "we are shown the sort of scrape into which a male ruler may be led by a similar sort of weakness".
[31] In Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Andrew Lamb describes the score as in Offenbach's "most charming", rather than satirical style,[32] with boleros, seguidillas and galops used to provide the exotic backdrop.
[33] Highlights, in Lamb's view, include La Périchole's letter song, O mon cher amant; her "tipsy" aria, Ah!
[32] The operetta specialist Richard Traubner writes of La Périchole, "The usual Meilhac–Halévy silliness is all there, but there is also a more sentimental vein in the leading character, which Offenbach exploited in several numbers, most famously the Act 1 letter song".
He adds: "Offenbach’s score is rich in Spanish (if not Peruvian) suggestions – boleros, seguidillas and fandangos abut galops, waltzes and marches – and is one of his most magical creations; the finales in particular are superb".
[35] In Britain BBC radio broadcast in 1962 a recording in French originally made by Radiodiffusion-Television Francaise[36] and English versions of the piece in 1966 and 1980, the latter commemorating the centenary of the composer's death.
