A city of pleasure: nightclubs and hotels, conmen and sex workers, and an opening chorus set in a railway terminus. No, not some Weill or Krenek satirical smash from Weimar Berlin, but Offenbach’s 1866 opéra-bouffe La vie parisienne – surely the original Zeitoper. A husband and wife arrive in Paris, bent on dalliance, and are taken for an increasingly farcical ride by a crowd of chancers, playboys and social-climbing servants. If the complications that ensue are reminiscent of the later Die Fledermaus, that’s because both works share a common source in Offenbach’s librettists Meilhac and Halévy.

And in a happier world La vie parisienne would be recorded just as frequently as Strauss’s operetta. A zesty contemporary plot is matched by a dancing, sparkling stream of méthode champenoise melody that even Offenbach surpassed only in Orphée and Hélène. Like a lot of musical comedies, however, it’s been much revised, translated and generally chopped about. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and Offenbach himself sanctioned numerous cuts and rewrites. Still, a work of such inspiration, and such historical significance, deserves an Urtext. That (or as close as is possible) is what has been created by those heroes of French opera at Palazzetto Bru Zane.

And that is what is performed, for the first time, in this 2021 production from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, directed and designed – and yes, I did a double-take, too – by the fashion designer Christian Lacroix. What we get is a five-act edition of the opera, retrofitted with material that was cut by Napoleon III’s censors even before the premiere. It’s an ‘original version’, in other words, that Offenbach, Meilhac and Halévy never saw staged.

Still, no Offenbach enthusiast is going to balk at the chorus about bouillabaisse at the end of Act 2, or the brief, droll aria for Urbain in Act 3. I’m not persuaded that the five-act structure makes the twists and turns of the plot any clearer, but the performances are spirited, sparky and brightly sung across the board. The men are articulate and sing with throwaway ease. Briand and Mauillon make an entertaining duo as the boulevardiers Bobinet and Gardefeu, Éric Huchet does a lively line in patter in the dual roles of bootmaker Frick and the millionaire Brazilian, and Franck Leguérinel projects lyricism as well as bluster as the formidably bewhiskered Baron de Gondremarck.

It’s the ladies who really make things ping, though. Jodie Devos brings a delightfully bright, fruity soprano to the glovemaker Gabrielle (every inch the soubrette, in her pink ankle-boots) and Aude Extrémo sounds dangerously smoky and ripe as the dominatrix-like courtesan Métella. As Pauline, Elena Galitskaya’s brief duet with Leguérinel is seductive out of all proportion to its length, vocally at least. Romain Dumas’s tempos feel just right, and it bustles, fizzes and sashays along, with lithe silvery strings, aquatint woodwinds and deliciously tingly percussion from the period-instrument Musiciens du Louvre. (They order these things better in France: why isn’t period-instrument G&S a matter of routine on this side of the Channel?)

As for Lacroix: well, he throws a lot of energy at the stage, some of which sticks. The set transforms seamlessly from railway station to townhouse to restaurant, and it’s a riot of colour. The leading characters have their faces painted like Pierrot, while costumes are a steampunky collage of Second Empire and 21st-century catwalk looks – a pile-up of checks, chintzes and strapless bodices that’s fun at first but gradually induces eyestrain. Bare-chested hunks add to the general air of a perfume advert, emphasising a mood of slightly camp silliness that might tickle you more than it did me. We’re all grown-ups, and Offenbach can be a lot naughtier than this. But any operetta fan will need to see this production, and let’s hope that that Bru Zane releases it on CD in due course, too.