An “opera-fairy”, this is how Travel to the moon by Offenbach is presented on the site of the Opéra de Marseille. No question of depriving yourself in these gloomy times with two performances offered on January 2 and 4 in the Marseille city. The show will then leave take a tour of France for a three-year tour.
This opéra-comique in 4 acts tells how the King V’lan decides to‘to answer the dthe desire of her son, Prince Caprice, to go to the moon. With the scientist Microscope, they go to the unknown star on board a shell launched by a cannon. Once arrived, they meet the inhabitants of the Moon, the Selenites. Each is convinced to be the only inhabitant of the Universe. Corn a love story will come upset their certainties.
Created in Paris at the Théâtre de la Gaîté on October 26, 1875, the Trip in the moon d’Offenbach has – despite its name – very little to see with the eponymous film by Georges Méliès or with the novel by Jules Verne (the opera premiered ten years after the publication of his work From the Earth to the moon), even if at the time of its release, we were in the midst of “Jules Verne mania”.
At the time, for this show, Offenbach was deploying great resources: 24 majestic decors that reproduce the Paris Observatory, a blast furnace, a lunar passage or a volcano; original architectural designs such as a glass palace or mother-of-pearl galleries; a lively dromedary borrowed from the Jardin d’Acclimatation, two choreographed ballets and finally 673 costumes designed by Alfred Grévin. It was a triumph with 248 Parisian performances between October 1875 and May 1877, and productions in London, Berlin, Vienna or New York.
For his staging, Olivier Fredj includes the 23 paintings, each more visual than the next and revives optical illusions by respecting the spirit of the initial creation. Because theOffenbach’s era marked the arrival of special effects in performing arts. The invention of the smoke machine dates from this period, such as the intensive use of hatches to reveal or disappear.
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The director therefore did not seek to outbid the level of special effects at a era where they are mastery yet so good. “The theater cannot compete with the Matrix or the Stars Wars explains Olivier Fredj. So we had to find something else to bring magic and poetry by showing the strings and the special effects, rather having fun with the scenery and the imagination but also with progress, societies that Offenbach criticizes by putting them side by side “.
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“The journey to the moon”
Opera-fairy in 4 acts by Jacques Offenbach
Musical direction Pierre Dumoussaud
January 2 at 2:30 p.m.
January 4 at 8 p.m.
at the Marseille Opera
After Marseille, Le Voyage sur la lune continues:
in 2022
Opéra de Nice: 13, 15 and 17 February / Opéra de Limoges: 9, 11 and 13 March / Opéra de Vichy: 20 March / Clermont Auvergne Opéra: 27 March / Opéra de Rouen Normandie: 8, 10 and 12 November / Opéra de Massy: December 9 and 11 /
in 2023
Reims Opera: March 4 and 5 / Metz Métropole Opera-Theater: March 11 and 12 / Grand Avignon Opera: March 24 and 26 / Théâtre du Passage, Neuchâtel – Switzerland: April 2