The two blind men
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The two blind men |
| Original title: | Les deux Aveugles |
| Shape: | operetta |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Jacques Offenbach |
| Libretto : | Jules Moinaux |
| Premiere: | July 5, 1855 |
| Place of premiere: | Paris |
| Playing time: | approx. 25 minutes |
| Place and time of the action: | Paris around 1855 |
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The two blinds (French: Les deux aveugles) is an operetta ( Opera buffa ) in one act by Jules Moinaux . Jacques Offenbach composed the music . The first performance took place on July 5, 1855 in Offenbach's Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris. The operetta only lasts half an hour. The singers at the premiere were Jean Berthelier and Étienne Pradeau .
orchestra
Original version: two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets, a bassoon, two horns, two cornets, a trombone and strings
The version later played in Vienna provides for two oboes, two bassoons, four horns and three trombones for the wind instruments.
action
The operetta is set on a bridge in Paris around 1855. The two protagonists were allegedly deaf in the past , today they play two blind people , because in truth, Patachon and Giraffier can hear and see perfectly. They pretend to be poor musicians in order to be more successful in their begging. Nobody grants the other alms, and worse still: Out of envy, they berate each other bitterly.
meaning
The Two Blinds was the first work Offenbach ever wrote for his own theater Bouffes-Parisiens. Hellmuth Steger and Karl Howe rate it in their operetta guide as a milestone in the history of the then still young musical genre of operetta .
literature
- Jacques Offenbach: The two blind men. = Les deux aveugles (= library of one-act operettas in complete piano excerpts with sung and spoken text. ). Text by Jules Moinaux and Carl Friedrich Wittmann. Complete piano excerpt with German and French text. Bote & Bock, Berlin 1911.
- Siegfried Kracauer : Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his time . Edited by Ingrid Belke. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005, ISBN 3-518-58338-7
