Aimée Opera bouffe: Les Brigands

“The Aimée Opera Bouffe Company last evening opened the last week of their present engagement at the Olympic Theatre by a delightful rendering of Offenbach’s ‘Les Brigands.’ This opera gives M. Juteau little opportunity to sing, and in this respect those who have heard this admirable singer are disappointed; but amends are made by the pretty airs assigned to Aimée and Bonelli, the former of whom sang last evening with more than her usual vivacity and brilliancy, while the latter sang sweetly, as usual, but with more confidence and power. M. Duchesne kept himself busy after his manner. It would probably puzzle a younger man to go through the same amount of ‘business,’ but this patriarch in opera bouffe contrives to do it with a cheerful spirit, without apparent fatigue and to the great delight of the less experienced persons in the audience. The opera is put upon the stage in excellent form, and the costumes are fresh and becoming. Mlle. Aimée’s dresses are marvels of quaintness and prettiness. The theme is a clean one, and we presume that ‘Les Brigands’ will take in money at the Olympic as certainly, though more lawfully, than when they tread their ‘native heath.’”

“’Les Brigands’ was produced last evening by Mlle. Aimée’s opera bouffe troupe for the first time this season. The ‘whispering’ and ‘laughing’ chorus were both rendered in a way satisfactory enough to call for a double encore. Aimée was in good voice and in her usual good spirits.”  

"On Monday night, at the Olympic Theatre, ‘Les Brigands’ robbed the world of rest ti’l toward midnight. The present banditti compare very well with the much larger troupe that gave the charming little opera a couple of years ago at the Grand Opera House. Mlle. Aimée’s Fiorella is a great advance on the unlamented clumsiness of Montaland, but Mlle. Bonelli as Frageletto makes us keenly miss the grace, and even more the excellent singing of the little Persini. M. Juteau, as the bandit chief, has some drollery, but his conception of Falsacappa seems to ignore a certain combination of dignity and stupidity that makes a great deal of the fun in the author’s idea of the part. He is painfully mercurial, not to say jerky, and his notion of the character of the father—of so adult a daughter as M’lle. Aimée, seems to be the costume and manners of a boy of seventeen. Duchesne as Pietro was himself—which, in New- York, is [illegible] enough. The rest of the performance is not remarkable, and both the carabiniers and the whisper-chorus, in Act II, were below the mark. Perhaps the best performer of all is one who is not on the bills, and whose identity is obscure. We mean the anonymous author of the libretto of the opera, whose translation would be good even as a literary effort, and in a libretto is really wonderful. The opera bouffe season closes with the week. It has been fairly successful, and has deserved its success.”