Looking for a bit of a light opera to counterbalance the dark long Wagner Ring Cycle, we went to see the last performance of New York City Opera’s La Périchole.  

Elizabeth-I had high hopes for a light fun evening and was looking forward to “hurricane-force gales of laughter” as the New York Post experienced.  Instead I sat bewildered through an operetta that had an over the top Viceroy in Kevin Burdette prancing around in his underwear with a cape, later dressed up as a cowboy for no apparent reason, and as a guard who got off on jiggling his “keys” in his pocket.  At times Jim Carey-esque, Burdette, overshadowed and overacted his sexed up Viceroy to the point where beyond being funny, his character and indeed the whole operetta, made no sense and fell flat.  For example, why was the Viceroy using a Darth Vader voice at the end of Act III?  I’m game for silliness and comedy, but it has to make some sense.  I don’t blame Burdette, but rather the director, Christopher Alden for taking us on a two and a half hour aimless romp. 

The synopsis of La Périchole I pulled from the internet was a typical comedy bouffe and sounded like fun.  The one I experienced last night didn’t make sense, and was muddied by the over the top acting.  Additionally, the creative costuming didn’t add up.  I understand the operetta was set in Spain.  But why were some singers in traditional Spanish dress and others in track suits and gold chains?  Why were some men Mafioso types using their hands as guns, while the Viceroy had an actual (toy) gun?  Were there simply not enough props to go around? 

The dungeon where Piquillo is held is your typical one: shark on a wall, the prisoner tied to a leather lazy boy lounger while forced to watch a large screen tv showing his accidental wife, and love of his life, with the Viceory.  This scene was one of the most effective in that it was funny, albeit bizarre, but also coherent.  The jail was silly, but it made sense that a form of torture for Piquillo was to watch his wife with the Viceroy on a large screen tv.  The rest of La Périchole, sadly did not work for me.  Marie Lenormand was terrific as Périchole, her voice was the clear standout star of the operetta.  

Philippe Talbot as Piquillo was also very good, especially considering the various positions he had sing in (lying on the floor, strapped down to a chair, etc.) and Philip Littell as the old prisoner was great fun.  It is always great to have a live orchestra at an opera and I really appreciated Emmanuel Plasson’s lively tempo.

Most frustrating in this operetta were the poor French accents of some of the performers and the inadequate supertitles.  The translations weren’t exactly accurate and during long periods of back and forth between the actors there were no super titles explaining what was being said.  For some actors I could understand their French and translate for my companions, but some accents were beyond my comprehension.  One of my companions said at times the performers’ French sounded more like Portuguese.  Perhaps Alden should have spent more time focusing on his singers’ pronunciation and cluing the audience in on the dialogue instead of getting all the performers to properly swing their flashlights like penises.  I hope New York City Opera ups their game for next year.

Shawn- I had never seen La Périchole, in fact the only Offenbach I think I have ever seen is Tales of Hoffman, and that has not been in my adult life.

Le Périchole ends the NYCO season and was our third NYCO production this year, and I found the New York City Center a huge improvement over BAM.   True, we were sitting in the exceedingly steep incline of the nosebleeds of the balcony but the quasi Moroccan architectural detail of the ceiling and stage proscenium gave me lots to look at while waiting for the strange yellow tiki head curtain to rise.

It was a strange, fun but often distractingly crazy production.

Trying to make opera more fun, silly and accessible to all is always a good idea and La Périchole is a perfect piece to do it with, as it’s already pretty loony.  I think there is room in opera for a love duet between a tenor strapped into a lazy boy recliner and a mezzo chained to a giant spinning knife thrower’s target underneath a large shiny stuffed shark (which this production literally had) and all other manner of silliness and insanity.

And all singers were gloriously game for the craziness.  The entire cast seemed to be enjoying themselves from start to finish and that is contagious.  The large audience at City Center cheered and laughed from nearly from start to finish.

Kevin Burdette as the Viceroy was a particular audience favorite.  Burdette is a very gifted physical comedian and director Christopher Alden obviously gave him permission if not encouragement to go completely off the leash.  The Viceroy chirps, shrieks, moans, shimmies, throws chairs and engages in nearly constant physical shtick of Ace Ventura Pet Detective level silliness and insanity.  It’s great to see any singer that engaged physically onstage but I barely remember Burdette’s singing voice.  

I do remember him masturbating with his hand in his pocket and repeatedly collapsing onstage in a fit of insanity only to spring up moments later for more Silly Walks-esque physical acrobatics.  But why is the Viceroy SO almost meaninglessly insane?  I didn’t find it added to or even gelled with the narrative and if anything was distracting, regardless of the brilliance of Burdette’s physical execution.

French Mezzo Soprano Marie Lenormand as Périchole was excellent.  She managed to effortlessly blend the extreme silliness of the production with moments of actual seriousness, which allowed for an emotional investment into the character and narrative on my part.  Too much physical insanity onstage begins to numb the audience forcing greater and more elaborate feats of goofiness to keep their attention.  Lenormand, while as silly as anyone on stage (well maybe not as crazy as Burdette), punctuated the performance with moments of gravity and great vocal beauty.  Her performance actually showed what NYCO’s La Périchole could have been.

Tenor Philippe Talbot as Piquillo was also good although his big act two aria was terribly undercut by images of Burdette screwing around projected on a large tv screen that drew the audience’s attention away from Talbot’s often fine singing.  

–Shawn E Milnes and Elizabeth Frayer