LES BRIGANDS • OPERA GARNIER PARIS
★★★★★☆
Foto: Agathe Poupeney
REVIEW LES BRIGANDS: NEW BARRIE KOSKY GOES ALL IN IN PARIS
Barrie Kosky has gone all in on all his signature takes in his brand- new staging of Offenbach’s thieves and robbers opera bouffe at the iconic Garnier in Paris. A wild costume party of burlesque queer in swirling mass choreographies of superior discipline and timing, it roars along for three hours, cheered on by a party-enthusiastic French audience.
Photo: Agathe Poupeney
The story is a reckless farce with an amoral moral. An odd collection of robbers and bandits (brigands) are under pressure due to a lack of business. The leader of the gang, Falsacappa, portrayed in Kosky’s version by Dutch tenor Marcel Beekman as a gorgeous drag queen in a red sequined dress, is forced to come up with a new million-dollar plan to restore order in the ranks.
Photo: Agathe Poupeney
From the outset, we are guests in a wildly creative costume bonanza that keeps escalating until the climax is reached when the Princess of Granada arrives to spend the night at a country inn with her entourage of red-haired courtiers in gold brocade and entire flotillas of Madonna figurines.
Photo: Agathe Poupeney
This is preceded by sequences where the bandits hi-jack the inn and capture the entire gendarmerie – and put on all or part of their clothes.
You can imagine a police force in fine uniform jackets, knee-high white patent leather boots, plateau boots that would make Abba envious, sexy sequin pumps and fishnet stockings.
The story, of course, is pure madness, playing on the cliché that the political elite, banks, police and politicians are just as criminal as the swindlers, who are at least honest about their methods.
Photo: Agathe Poupeney
The colorful French soprano Marie Perbost kicks ass as the gangster’s daughter Fiorella, who is to be exchanged for a large sum of money by posing as the Princess of Granada, who is to marry the Italian Prince of Mantova for a generous dowry.
The catch is that Fiorella wants to get out of her criminal career as she has fallen in love with the cute bank clerk Fragoletto (played as a trouser role by a scrupulous Antoinette Dennfeldt) during a previous robbery.
In several delightful scenes, Daddy Falsacappa is shaken to the core by the prospect of losing his daughter to something as horrible as a heterosexual, monogamous marriage to an honest civilian!
Of course, it all comes to a head when the money is paid out in a glorious finale that seems plucked from a game show. (Are you sure you want to open the box? Are you absolutely sure? Is that your final answer?
Photo: Agathe Poupeney
It turns out that the finance minister has spent all the money, and they end up installing the gangster king as the new prime minister, much to the delight of the audience. There’s something about the anarchic approach that’s right at home here in Paris.
The audience cheers loudly at various innuendo-laden references to players and events in current French politics, just as the Olympics get a couple of slaps on the back. Damn, after the tourists have left, we are alone with the bedbugs!
As far as the cultural calories are concerned, we are at the very light end of the scale, despite strenuous attempts to talk the theme up to serious reality.
On the other hand, the theatre is staged with superior professionalism and genuine love for the buffa-genre.
It has a full costume budget with up to 80 performers on stage in various disguises, choreographed in crazy mass riots with lots of humor.
The orchestral playing roars along and it is first and foremost sweepingly festive with several rather wonderful, waltz-like sequences that will have you automatically rocking along in Opera Garnier’s wide, red velour chairs.
Garnier is an opera house that takes everyone’s breath away with its huge dimensions and opulent gold-decorated interior. A theatre experience in a class of its own, no matter what’s playing.
Five stars from GOT TO SEE THIS to the King of Farce Barrie Kosky and his well-prepared minions, who shows how this should be done.
