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La Périchole – review

This article is more than 11 years old
Garsington Opera at Wormsley

Offenbach's great 1868 satire on Second Empire sexual hypocrisy is rarely seen in the UK, so Garsington Opera should be commended for tackling it – possibly as the first instalment of a re-examination of the composer's operettas. The project should be encouraged, though the company might perhaps consider a stronger approach to Offenbach than this.

La Périchole is set in colonial Peru, but the central figure of the Viceroy is a thinly disguised portrait of Napoleon III, who took a succession of mistresses, all of whom were pushed into marriages of convenience to preserve a show of decorum at court. The Viceroy meets his match, however, in Périchole, a starving, if worldly-wise street singer, who succumbs to his attentions so as to eat, but then connives so that the arranged marriage is with her own rather dim boyfriend, Piquillo.

Conducted by David Parry and directed by Jeremy Sams, the production has some fine ideas and performances at its centre. Geoffrey Dolton's splendid Viceroy wears a succession of costumes modelled on Napoleon III's uniforms. Feisty Irish singer-actor Naomi O'Connell is cast as Périchole, and Sams lets her and Robert Murray's delightful Essex-boy Piquillo loose on a world of cut-glass accents and social snobbery.

Yet it also feels too safe. Offenbach's depiction of a self-interested government, colluding in imperial bad behaviour, isn't brought into sharp focus. And even though both set and auditorium are festooned with underwear on washing lines, none of it is ribald enough to give the impression of a society caught, quite literally, with its knickers down. It's a pleasant evening out, but not the dangerous entertainment it could be.

This article was amended on 21 June 2012 because the original said La Périchole hasn't been seen in the UK for more than 30 years. This incorrect information was published in the Garsington programme. La Périchole was staged at the Buxton Festival in 2002. This has been corrected.

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