Robinson Crusoé
[n 1] These were box-office successes in commercial theatres, but the composer's only work for the prestigious state-owned Opéra-Comique, Barkouf (1860), had been a failure, hampered by a plot described by Hector Berlioz as puerile.
[6] In the version by Offenbach's librettists, Eugène Cormon and Hector Crémieux, the first act opened with a reassuringly bourgeois scene: Crusoé senior reading the Bible while his wife busies herself at the spinning wheel.
The opening night was reported by Le Figaro as a considerable success, with many numbers being encored, but the piece ran for only 32 performances.
Robinson, feigning insanity, fools the pirates with a story of treasure buried in the jungle and they go off to find it, but are caught by the cannibals.
In January 1868 Offenbach travelled to Vienna to oversee a production at the Theater an der Wien,[15] and the opera was staged at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels the following month.
Among the first cast were David Bartleet (Robinson Crusoe), Angela Bostock (Edwige), Ann Murray (Friday), Anna Bernadin (Suzanne), Michael Scott (Toby) and Clive Harré (Jim Cocks).
[20] In 1983 Kent Opera presented the work in a production by Adrian Slack using the Don White English version; Roger Norrington (who "lavished as much care on the score as if it had been by the real Mozart") conducted,[21] and the cast included Neil Jenkins (Robinson); Gerwyn Morgan (Sir William); Vivian Tierney (Edwige); Eirian James (Friday); Eileen Hulse (Suzanne); Andrew Shore (Will Atkins) and Gordon Sandison (Jim Cocks).
There were two casts: Robinson – Gérard Garino, Christian Papis; Sir William Crusoé – Fernand Dumont, Jean-Louis Soumagnas; Toby – Antoine Normand, Christian Papis; Jim Cocks – Jean-Philippe Marlière, Michel Trempont; Atkins – Michel Philippe; Vendredi – Cynthia Clarey, Sylvie Sullé; Edwige – Danielle Borst, Lucia Scappaticci; Suzanne – Eliane Lublin, Marie-Christine Porta; Deborah – Anna Ringart, Hélia T'Hézan.
[9] The first production in Russia took place in March 2022 by the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre directed by Alexander Titel and conducted by Arif Dadashev.
[27] Reviewing the original production the critic of Le Figaro, Eugène Tarbé, judged the piece excessively long, with too much music and too much dialogue.
"a delicious quartet, written in a melodic style, simple and severe at the same time", and singled out among other numbers "Debout, c'est aujourd'hui dimanche", the "Chanson du pot-au-feu" and the overture and entr'actes.
[6] After the first revival, in 1973, the critic Winton Dean wrote that although the piece has some very attractive music: there is a basic flaw: Offenbach clearly could not decide whether he was writing opéra comique, which aims at genuine, if stylized, sentiment and character, or operetta, which makes no such claim.
The second pair of lovers and Jim Cocks, a pre-Crusoe emigrant to the Orinoco who preferred to be the cannibals' chef (in two senses) rather than their dinner, are pure operetta.
Man Friday ... is, if not original, a convincing character in whom comedy, pathos and native good sense are happily blended.
"[29] In Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians Lamb comments that the action "owes as much to the British pantomime version of Defoe as to the novel".
[19] Opera Rara has published a studio recording of the Don White edition made in London in 1980, conducted by Alun Francis with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir.
[8] Edwige's waltz song, "Conduisez-moi vers celui que j'adore", has been recorded by sopranos including Natalie Dessay, Amelia Farrugia, Elizabeth Futral, Sumi Jo and Joan Sutherland.
