M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le . . .

The plot provided many opportunities for Offenbach to indulge in his lighthearted musical parodies of well-known opera melodies and formulas, especially a grand trio in which Italian belcanto is imitated and a comic solo for the manservant.

[1] M. Choufleuri was first performed privately as part of a musical and theatrical evening from the Bouffes Parisiens company at the parliamentary Présidence du Corps Législatif, Palais Bourbon, Paris on 31 May 1861, which also included the overture to Mari sans le savoir by Morny, and a scene played by Madeleine Brohan, Bressant and Barré from the Comédie-Française,[2] in the presence of Napoleon III.

The first public performance was given at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, Paris on 14 September 1861.The Duc de Morny was the monarch's illegitimate brother and a senior government official, which may explain some of the laudatory reviews of his work.

M. Choufleuri restera chez lui was performed as part of a triple bill entitled ‘Vive Offenbach’ with Pomme d'api and Mesdames de la Halle at the Paris Opéra-Comique in December 1979, revived the following year and in 1983, with a recording in 1982.

[5] The newly-rich but culturally ignorant M. Choufleuri invites the upper crust of Paris to a private party and "musical soiree" (at his bourgeois drawing-room, furnished in vulgar taste) by celebrated real life Italian opera singers: soprano Henriette Sontag, tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, and baritone Antonio Tamburini.