This 1991 film of Offenbach’s operetta derives from a Lyon Opéra production screened in France at Christmas that year. The stage show was later taken around the French provinces‚ where I caught a performance in Caen in April 1992. The production follows the work’s conception for a company of actors rather than singers. The score does not require big singing voices‚ and the tunes tend to be in the orchestra; but the resultant singing here is sometimes less pleasant than it might be – especially for repeated home listening. Indeed the production’s ideas too often go against the music‚ not least in a barely audible opening chorus performed off­stage and relayed as if through station loudspeakers (the setting being Paris’s Gare de l’Ouest). Altogether there’s little sign of 1860s elegance‚ and dialogue is delivered in curiously desultory fashion. Chairs form virtually the sole stage props and are used for some gratuitous crudity‚ as when the glove­maker Gabrielle‚ stretched between two of them‚ sings ‘Je suis veuve d’un colonel’ while being groped by the boot­maker Frick. The production undoubtedly has real virtues. I enjoyed Hélène Delavault’s sharply pointed and strongly sung courtesan Métella and Isabelle Mazin’s sweetly sung Gabrielle. Moreover‚ we are given an authentic­sized orchestra‚ excellently conducted by Jean­Yves Ossonce‚ and a very full musical edition by Jean­Christophe Keck that restores several passages‚ including the whole of the usually omitted fourth act of five. The availability of multilingual subtitles with this DVD issue also offers a valuable opportunity for international audiences to familiarise themselves with the original text. Yet the essential spirit of the work is missing. It seems consistent with a misguided approach that we even have the change from DVD1 to DVD2 in the middle of Act 3 rather than between acts. Who makes these daft decisions?