FULL Mesdames de la Halle (Offenbach) Rio de Janeiro 2025 Teatro no Campus
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Mesdames de la Halle
- Composer: Offenbach Jacques
- Libretto: Armand Lapointe Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: UNIRIO - Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
- Recorded: 2025
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Giulianna Mussemeci, Marina Zanol, Caroline Novaes, Laura Braga, Marcus Vinicius Lima, Bernardo Rulff, Isaias Leal, Heitor Ferraz, Cristobal Rioseco, Beatriz Satie
- Conductor: GUILHERME BERNSTEIN
- Orchestra: Orquestra da UNIRIO
- Stage Director: CAROL MCDAVIT, GUILHERME BERNSTEIN, MOACIR CHAVES
- Stage Designer: Clara Vasconcellos
- Costume Designer: Yan Calixto
Information about the Recording
- Format: DVD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, gensubs, othersubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Mesdames de la Halle is an opérette bouffe in one act by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Armand Lapointe. It was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, Paris on 3 March 1858. and was the first work of Offenbach’s at the Bouffes with a chorus and a large cast. Gänzl describes the piece as “a delicious piece of Parisian bouffonerie”
Synopsis
The setting is the Marché des Innocents in the reign of Louis XV.
At the Paris fruit and vegetable market vendors of all kinds are plying for custom. The drum major, Raflafla, enters with some troops and sings a flattering song to the market women. Madou and Beurrefondu are not interested; they are after the young kitchen boy Croûte-au-pot, for whom Mesdames Poiretapée, Madou and Beurrefondue have all fallen. Croûte-au-pot enters, but singing of his love for the fruit seller Ciboulette. Madou and Beurrefondu press their wares on him, but when he upturns his basket, Raflafla re-enters and takes Croûte-au-pot off in a barrow. Madou and Beurrefondu fight with Poiretapée, which attracts the attention of the commissaire, the customers and Ciboulette; when the quarreling women have been led away, Ciboulette introduces herself, in song. When Raflafla tries to sweet-talk her she repulses him, despite the fact that her heart always misses a beat when she meets him. Poiretapée has bribed the commissaire with a drink and comes back to the market where Raflafla tries it on with her, by singing a ballad to the moon. Croûte-au-pot comes in, having jumped out of a window at the jail, and he and Ciboulette sing a happy duet.
Beurrefondu re-enters, disapproving of Ciboulette’s liaison with the kitchen-boy. Ciboulette says that as an orphan the consent of her parents will be difficult to obtain. She tells Beurrefondu that her father was a sergeant of guards, and she is eighteen, female and from Vaugirard. Beurrefondu faints into the fountain, and when dragged out claims Ciboulette as her daughter. When Beurrefondu recounts this to Madou she too faints in the fountain leading to a septet over the dilemma. Ciboulette next produces a sealed letter she has kept next to her heart since she was three months old; when Croûte-au-pot reads it out Raflafla and Poiretapée both faint, thus solving the mystery of her parents, who consent to her marriage. The curtain falls with all acclaiming the ‘unequalled beauties – the ladies of la Halle’.
Quoted from Wikipedia