November 2002

French Lyric Opera: Double Bill

La Princesse Jaune (Oriental Princess), by Camille Saint-Saens

Pomme d'api (Wild Rose), by Jacques Offenbach
Translation by Jonathan P. Levy

Program Notes
John Edward Niles

The two one-act works on the program represented the very best examples of French lyric opera. La princesse jaune (the Oriental Princess) by Camille Saint-Saens was written at the end of 1871, and Pomme d'api (Wild Rose) by Jaques Offenbach was written in 1873. Saint-Saens was 36 when he wrote his opera, and Offenbach was almost 50 when he wrote his. Both works were written and produced under strained circumstances. The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent Paris Commune affected the operatic fortunes of both composers in a major way.

La princess jaune was a kind of compromise between Saint-Saens and the director of the Opera-Comique, Camille du Loche. Because of the privations of the war, the company was not able to mount a production of Saint-Saens' first full-length opera, Le timbre d'argent. The Management suggested that Saint-Saens work with a young poet named Louis Gallet on a shorter, one-act piece. The result was what Saint-Saens would later call "that innocent little work." Things oriental and specifically Japanese were the rage in Paris and thus La princesse jaune was born. However, the Management of the Opera-Comique did not want the piece to be totally oriental in nature so the rather curious combination of Holland and Japan was dreamed up by Gallet. While the work was not a success at its premiere, in a revival in 1906 it was hailed as a "brilliant and joyous work."


When Pomme d'api was premiered in September 1873, Offenbach's audience was not as boisterous and enthusiatic as before. He was forced to revise the opera and return to the style of opera comique, in which he had written some 25 years earlier. While he turned away from the more operatic writing found in La belle Helene or La Pericole, his combining of drollery (The Grill Trio for example) and sentimental romance (the duet between Catherine and Gustave) showed great ingenuity and skill.



Pomme d'api is opera comique at its best. La princesse jaune is more lyric in style. The element of drug usage in the Saint-Saens might seem out of place. However, in France -- and in Paris in particular -- the use of "controlled substances" was a very common occurrence, the drug of choice being opium.

Cast: Lewis Freeman, Carmen Mason, and Scott Priest








From the Review

Joseph McLellan of The Washington Post wrote "About halfway through Jacques Offenbach's one-act opera "Pomme d'Api (Wild Rose)" ... in the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre, it occurred to me that I had never attended an Offenbach opera that I found less than delightful. This one maintained that tradition. All three [singers] acted convincingly, Freeman most of all. And all three sang well, Mason with a special tonal glory... Priest was first-class both as an actor and as a singer. The orchestral music was very satisfactorily provided by the Lady Trio.