Offenbach, Jacques: Romantic Offenbach

Selected Arias for Mezzo-Soprano

Jacques Offenbach's more than 100 stage works are an endless treasure trove of vocal highlights with highly different musical moods and lyrical themes. To mark the 200th birthday of the great composer in 2019, which is at the same time the year of the 20th anniversary of the Offenbach Edition Keck OEK, the editor and Offenbach expert Jean-Christophe Keck has assembled a selection of arias. The four-part collection arranged according to voice category shows a rather unknown, romantic side of Offenbach. Apart from rediscovered works and first editions, however, the collection is not complete without some of his unrivalled hits. Apart from trouvailles from Les Bavards, Maître Péronilla and Robinson Crusoé, the volume for mezzo-soprano also contains some of those crowd-pullers the composer wrote for his most famous star, the singer Hortense Schneider. But Périchole, the Beautiful Helen or the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein show definitely not only their burlesque side, but also their thoughtful one here. And in Fantasio's bitter-sweet Ballad to the Moon, Offenbach paints his own portrait as a melancholic in a jester's costume. Romantic Offenbach is aimed at fully trained and budding professionals as well as at Offenbach fans of every shade and colour, providing repertoire pieces for recitals, studies or private music-making.