Search - Offenbach, Harbell, Pndeau :: LA Fille du Tambour Major

'La Fille' never fails to please!

Brett Farrell | Cape May, NJ USA | 09/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was Offenbachs first great success after years of bankruptcy and flops and there is little wonder why. Everything is wonderful, it certainly is not the old Offenbach who wrote La Belle Helen or La Vie Parisienne. This is a more modern Offenbach sucumbing to the changes wrought by Audran and Lecocq. The waltzes and songs in this opera are more elegant and romantic than before and theres even a piece that's very fortelling of Barber Shop music.

This recording is wonderful. You can hear the age of the recording during the bits of dialogue but when the music plays, it has been so perfectly remastered it sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday...well maybe not yesterday but the remastering is as good as the job always done by EMI with their older recordings.

There are 2 cd's by accord of this opera. The older single cd version which has no dialogue and cuts off in awkward points

and then the more recent version that is two discs and includes the dialogue. This is the better one for the sound is better but the book it comes with is all in french.

Overall this a great operetta and was a great comic piece for Offenbach to go out on."