Jacques Offenbach
La Périchole

It is rare to find an object far from popularity, but that despite this gives us a sense of familiarity. This is what happened to me when I first heard this operetta by Offenbach. A work almost unknown, except to enthusiasts, but already from the overture, I felt this sense of familiarity, as if this music I had heard more and more over the course of my life. But I know it's not so. So where does this feeling come from? I believe it is the power of the purest music, most melodic.

This work has in itself that Parisian character, which has become an unrivaled style, it thus has the voice of a tradition we all know without ever having truly experienced it, this work is for its melodic vein obvious, so obvious that one cannot think it has never been composed. It is the music of a people, of a history, of customs, ideas, gestures. The music is bubbly, at times melancholic in the simplicity of tender moments, rich with instrumental colors; the concerted pieces are at times essential, sometimes reaching comedy, and at times written in a refined manner. Offenbach generously gives us an avalanche of melodies, with extreme loyalty, without adorning itself with that "blonde-Viennese" aesthetic that was so pleasing to the courts. This is boulevard Parisian operetta, for the people, for thieves and whores. In its era, music long despised by "cultured" musicians and critics, despised for its immorality and for its popular simplicity, so unserious—or perhaps facetious? Is it time to rediscover it? I wish this practically unknown operetta a future of fame, as the potential to enter the hearts of people around the world is there indeed! In fact, there are moments of extreme catchiness, which are the very moments that on my first listening seemed familiar to me. For example, "O mon cher amant, je te jure", "Sans en souffleur mot à personne", "Je dois vous prévenir, Madame", "Les femmes il n'y a que ca!", "Je suis le plus joli geolier", and especially "En avant! en avant, soldats!" with the "cousins' waltz". This last choral waltz is perhaps one of the definitive waltzes, at least this is what I personally feel. Can someone else say the same? I would be curious to hear some similar testimonies. I couldn't find a single trace of these pieces on video sites, apart from the famous "drunkard's aria", the only vaguely famous moment, and also "the letter aria". With how much pride do we personally discover something far from mass popularity that excites us? A pride that grows the more unknown the work is. 

I recommend listening to the recording with Lombard as conductor and Crespin and Vanzo as performers. On the other hand, it should be the only published edition of this operetta. 

Offenbach, as Rossini used to say, is the "Mozart of the Champs Elysées".