오펜바흐: 도적떼 (Les brigands)

Les brigands (French pronunciation: [le bʁiɡɑ̃], The Bandits) is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Meilhac and Halévy's libretto lampoons both serious drama (Schiller's play The Robbers) and opéra comique (Fra Diavolo and Les diamants de la couronne by Auber). The plot is cheerfully amoral in its presentation of theft as a basic principle of society rather than as an aberration. As Falsacappa, the brigand chieftain, notes: "Everybody steals according to their position in society." The piece premiered in Paris in 1869 and has received periodic revivals in France and elsewhere, both in French and in translation. Les brigands has a more substantial plot than many Offenbach operettas and integrates the songs more completely into the story. The forces of law and order are represented by the bumbling carabinieri, whose exaggerated attire delighted the Parisian audience during the premiere. In addition to policemen, financiers receive satiric treatment. The satire counterpoints lively musical romps and the frequent use of Italian and Spanish rhythms; "Soyez pitoyables" is a true canon, and each act finale is a well-developed whole. A 1983 New York Times article theorized that the music of the piece influenced Bizet in writing Carmen and noted that the librettists for this work supplied Bizet's libretto, but standard studies of Bizet and Offenbach do not mention any such influence.