Offenbach: Overtures

Chronique

For this 2017 Naxos release, Darrell Ang leads the Orchestre National de Lille in a program of tuneful overtures from the operettas of Jacques Offenbach. Initially, Offenbach gave his stage works short musical introductions, but later wrote full-fledged overtures for them, largely to cater to the taste of his Viennese audiences. While most of Offenbach's 100 operettas and one-act pieces have become obscure, many of their overtures survive as concert bonbons. The program offers a few overtures assembled by other hands, such as Orphée aux enfers (arranged by Carl Binder and Johann Georg Busch), La Belle Hélène (arranged by Eduard Haensch), the "Kakadou" Overture from Vert-Vert (arranged by Fritz Hoffman), and several that are credited to Offenbach himself, including the overtures to La Vie parisienne, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, and La Fille du tambour-major, as well as a work from his youth, the Ouverture á grand orchestre. This rarity predates Offenbach's theatrical ventures, and shows the 24-year-old composer attempting a concert work in the early Romantic style of Weber. Yet the melodies of Offenbach's mature works are what most aficionados cherish, and the album provides many examples of the infectious tunes that prompted Rossini to call Offenbach "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées."
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