Volksoper

Fall, Madame Pompadour

The Volksoper gave me as a birthday present a ticket to tonight’s performance of Leo Fall’s operetta Madame Pompadour.  This operetta, about Louis XV’s chief mistress, had its premiere 90 years ago last week and was apparently all the rage back then.  Nothing wrong with the music or the convoluted plot, but the operetta has not aged well at all.  Some fanciful ditties, although nothing that sent me home singing, but mostly the music came across as very staid, with very little development, in the tradition of Lehár and Kálmán but without their originality.

The Volksoper cast and orchestra performed well and kept the pace, under the baton of Adreas Schüller.  Ursula Pfitzner made her debut, to great impression, in the title role.  Mark Adler balanced her well in the lead male role, René d’Estrades.