This Zurich production from 1997 fully enters into the spirit of Offenbach’s satirical romp, hardly ever stepping over into farce, a cardinal error too often perpetrated on the master of opera bouffe. Here everything is at once disciplined, contained and at the same time appropriately zany under the observant stage direction of Helmut Lohner. He engaged Jean-Charles de Castellbajac to design the literally fantastic, multi-coloured costumes, which add greatly to the pleasure of watching the show. Certain liberties are taken with the original scenario but the spoken and sung text is very little altered.
Then there is Harnoncourt in the pit to ensure that the musical values are as exemplary as the visual ones. His Zurich band is of a suitably small enough size to allow for all the instrumental detail to be clearly delineated. Strings use little vibrato. Rhythms, as always with this conductor, are precise and taut, tempos measured but never too slow. The composer’s innate wit is always to the fore. In sum, the score sounds fresh-minted.
The polyglot cast, speaking and singing excellent French, obviously enjoys its collective self, headed by Kasarova’s languidly erotic Helen, pouting her mouth and flashing her eyes in the cause of Venus. She sings her music in a suitably suggestive manner, flaunting her vocal as much as her physical attributes. Deon van der Walt, a lively Paris, sings with the sweetness and sensitivity of the best French tenors of the past in this genre. The comic roles are all enthusiastically taken, but among the the lesser parts Liliana Nichiteanu steals the honours with her cheeky Oreste, sung in a firmly projected attractive mezzo and with a glint in her eye – surely a star in the making.
Add perceptive video direction by Hartmut Schottler and superb sound and you have what amounts to an outright winner that will delight all advocates of Offenbach and – I hope – many others.'