I thought I would expand my operetta game. Offenbach <i>is</i> known as the father of the genre, after all (so is Hervé. Reports vary. But Offenbach is important, at any rate). Right! Let's get right into it!
Fritz is an ordinary private in the army who just wants to marry his sweetheart Wanda, but the titular Grand Duchess is upset because she's supposed to marry this Prince Paul guy whom she doesn't like, so her chamberlain, Baron Puck, decides to start a war to cheer her up. Inspecting the troops, she conceives an infatuation for Fritz, and repeatedly promotes him until he's the head of the whole armed forces, much to the chagrin of the previous head honcho, General Boum. But Fritz goes out and wins the war (by making the enemy drunk--it's explicitly noted that nobody was killed, which seems a nice humanitarian touch). So that's great, but he doesn't respond to the Duchess' barely-veiled advances, so she decides to go along with Paul, Boum, and Puck's plan to have him assassinated. But she immediately calls off the plan and forgets about Fritz when she sees how hot Paul's chamberlain is, and she agrees to marry Paul so she can try to seduce him. However, it turns out said chamberlain is married with children, so she resigns herself, okay okay, MAYBE this marriage can be okay. And that is that.
(Interesting to note that this was banned in France after the Franco-Prussian War, 'cause I guess making fun of militarism--which this certainly doesn't do in any very biting way--is unpatriotic.)
Hella fun music. A helephant of fun. Here, I uploaded one of the highlights, but there are many, even if the plot meanders a little in the back half. And the cast is really terrific, notably Dame Felicity Lott in the title role. I was surprised to look at the wikipedia entry and see that the Duchess is meant to be twenty-ish. It does make immediate sense; it explains her impulsiveness and general immaturity. And yet, Lott playing her as a Woman of a Certain Age also feels entirely natural, and Lott is a great physical comedienne (is using the archaic female version of "comedian" sexist? Well, I'm using it because it suggests a sort of old-timey Hollywood type that Lott embodies very well), and she just kills the whole durn thing. I also want to give credit to Sandrine Piau as Wanda; even though it's a much smaller role, she has a similar physical expressiveness and is a lot of fun.
I'm going to see every Offenbach operetta available! End of story!
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