« You will not find in all Peru, neither Brazil nor Venezuela, tavern or cabaret more gala nor a more genial rendez-vous when bound for a friendly round or two. » ACTE 1, GUADALENA

COLOURFUL
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
SATIRICAL MIRTH

Libretto by Ludovic Halévy
and Henry Meilhac

Lima, circa 1770. The Viceroy of Peru, Don Andrès, who is known for his string of female conquests, sets his sights on La Périchole, a poor young street singer. She leaves her life on the streets and her lover Piquillo to move into the palace. But to become an official Lady in Waiting at the court, she must be married! Piquillo, who has been lurking nearby, is selected and, in a drunken haze, agrees to marry the Viceroy’s new favourite….

A BITTERSWEET COMEDY

Offenbach became a famous comedy and opera buffa composer on the strength of the extraordinary success of his La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein in 1867. With La Périchole, however, the composer began to move away from these genres, exploring the paths that would lead him to compose Les Contes d’Hoffmann in 1881. Although comedy was his speciality, Offenbach demonstrated with this opera that he was equally talented when it came to lyricism, telling a story of love thwarted by misery and oppressive power. The composer paints a satirical picture of the Second Empire, abandoning purely buffoonish situations in favour of developing new emotions.

So it is easy to see how Parisian audiences would have found this subject matter and the new approach troubling, despite the lyrical gaiety and traditional misunderstandings and the joyous ending. Not everyone liked this story of penniless street singers who became objects of power! In this unsettling bittersweet opera, life clearly is not always a bed of roses for the one dubbed “the little Mozart of the Champs-Élysées”…

With this new co-production, the ORW shows that this uncompromising portrait of a society undergoing profound change is still as relevant as when it was first performed.

• LAST PERFORMED AT THE ORW
  DECEMBER 2001
• NEW COPRODUCTION
  OPÉRA ROYAL DE WALLONIE-LIÈGE
  THÉÂTRE DES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES