Toto's castle

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Le chateau à Toto , German title Totos Schloss , is an opéra bouffe in three acts by the French composer Jacques Offenbach .

The piece premiered at the Palais Royal in Paris and can be seen as a follow-up to “ Paris Life ”. However, “Totos Schloss” was no longer as successful. The libretto comes from Offenbach's most important librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy .

Offenbach began work on “Toto's Castle” in January 1868 while on vacation in Nice. The first reading took place on March 19, and the musical rehearsals began the next day. The premiere was on May 6th.

Environment of creation

In 1867 Offenbach wrote the first full-length work for the Théâtre du Palais-Royal with the opéra comique “Paris Life”. This broke new ground for both the composer and the theater, because up until now the Théâtre du Palais-Royal had only played vaudevilles , i.e. entertainment theater with individual, interspersed numbers. By 1863 Offenbach had already delivered the incidental music for Vaudevilles twice, in 1839 with his very first stage attempt by Pascal et Chambord and in 1862 with La Demoiselle der Nanterre . Another vaudeville a year later brought a special meeting. In 1863 Meilhac and Halévy wrote their first joint libretto, “Le Brésilien”, Hortense Schneider played the main role , and Offenbach wrote the Ronde du Brésilien .

action

Count Hector, called Toto , the last offspring of the venerable family de la Roche-Trompette, is broke. In Paris he was too happy, so he is returning to his Norman homeland to auction his ancestors' castle there, for better or worse. The old Baron Jean de Crécy-Crécy is only waiting for this opportunity to end a centuries-old family feud in favor of the Crécy-Crécy.

The people from the village come to greet their count. Toto's castle is to be auctioned under the direction of the notary Massepain, who is also the music director of the village of Roche-Trompette.

reception

After 15 successful performances, the number of visitors soon began to decline, although the imperial couple had attended the third performance. Even the re-equipment that took place at the beginning of July 1868 could no longer prevent the piece from being removed from the program on July 28th.

grades

A new edition of the reconstructed score after finding the handwritten copied orchestral parts (Heugel 1872) and an orchestral score (Bote & Bock 1870 - extended instrumentation) as well as the inclusion of two historical piano reductions (Victor Boullard - Édition Gérard; Julius Hopp - Vienna) and the preserved libretti are expected to appear Beginning of 2009 as part of the complete edition OEK (Offenbach Édition Keck).

literature

  • Peter Ackermann, Ralf-Olivier Schwarz (eds.): Le Château à Toto. Jacques Offenbach's opéra-bouffe. Materials, texts, documents (= Bad Emser Hefte. 253, 1–2, ISSN  1436-459X ). 2 volumes. VGDL, Bad Ems 2005.
  • Peter Hawig: Jacques Offenbach. Facets of life and work (= contributions to the Offenbach research. Vol. 2). Dohr, Cologne-Rheinkassel 1999, ISBN 3-925366-57-1 .
  • Jean-Claude Yon: Jacques Offenbach. Editions Gallimard, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-07-074775-1 .

Recordings

  • Jacques Offenbach: Le Château à Toto . Newly orchestrated by Alfred Herzog (2001)
  • Jacques Offenbach: Le Château à Toto . Opéra bouffe in three acts. Tect by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. First complete recording based on the sources of the reconstructed score. Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, Hanover University of Applied Sciences, International Jacques Offenbach Festival Bad Ems. Live recording from the Great Hall of the HfMDK Frankfurt, October 2003

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