Aim�e Opera Bouffe: Princesse de Trebizonde

“’La Princess de Trebizone’ has, as we foretold, proved most successful at the Lyceum Theatre, and the principal songs and choruses are nightly encored. The piece runs very smoothly now, and the acting and singing throughout is excellent.”

“Offenbach’s last Parisian triumph, ‘La Princesse,’ has been delighting the town for the last week. Messrs. Grau and Chizzola’s cage of singing birds has been full of fresh warblings. All down Fifth-ave. the pianos answer to a new touch. For a time ‘La Princesse’ fills the air to give way, like ‘La Duchese’ to some fresh comer. The music has that charming characteristic which distinguishes Offenbach’s scores from those of all his rivals. Its melodies are distinct, and have no vagueness as those of Hervé and Lecocq. Hence their novelty, brightness, and grace strike at once. Nor is his music without its serious sentiment. A chorus of pages, for instance, in the third act, mouvement de marche, is conspicuous alike for its originality and its very delicate treatment, as are also the brilliantly harmonized chorus of hunters in the second act and the verses descriptive of the waxen figure commencing, Lile est peinte admirablement. Of course in the comic numbers Offenbach is supreme. Nothing can be happier than Prince Casimir’s Me maquillé je comme ondit, and the [illegible] refrain, Aux Canaries au Canada in the second act. The couplet, Ah j’ai mal aux dents, in which in the third act Raphael describes an imaginary tooth ache, is also ineffably droll. There is also in this act a very amusing duet between Regina and Tremoline.

All the concerted pieces, too, are full of Offenbach’s dash and vigor. The finale of the second act is one which in an instant snatches and holds the ear. In a month it will obtain the reward of melody—a place on every barrel-organ in New-York. Indeed all through this opera Offenbach is more or less inspired. He never allows dullness near him; and air after air is nightly encored and hummed the whole way home.

Then the performance is a set of sevres itself. By her vivacity, elegance of diction and expressive singing Mlle. Aimée has already secured a place among the foremost of French artists which her performance in this opera will strengthen. Her comedy, under the strong temptation of Opera Bouffe, is wholly free from exaggeration and at the same time most effective, the highest merit and a most difficult one to be reached in this style of piece. Then so gay, so bright, so joyous a little actress as M’lle. Gandon has perhaps never before appeared in French opera before the American public. She is not remarkably favored as a songstress, but her delivery of every line of her part reveals a comedienne of wonderful elan and espieglerie. She is full of finesse. Every word has its significance. The male artists are equally good. M. Debeer is an actor of immense humor, who throws himself with such gusto into the fun with which ‘La Princesse’ abounds that he immediately infects the audience with his merriment. M. Duplan, too, is a most amusing eccentric comedian, who rattles off his couplets with unvarying hilarity. Among the associates of these, the leading artists, may be mentioned Mlle. Menelly, who sings very skillfully, Mons. Dubouchet, who personates Cabriolo with much heartiness; and Mlle. Kid, who as Paola exhibits much comic vim. We are glad to be able to state that we could not catch an objectionable phrase in the libretto of ‘La Princesse.’ MM. Nuitter and Treffee have written a most amusing play without the smallest breach of propriety.”