Page 49 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2021. Opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama ▪︎ Operetta between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 5
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operetta as safe space
ic background and all of them characterized by a definitive author
ity in all questions of mundane behavior. Their frivolity expressed
itself in their supreme contempt for the bourgeoisie: through an ex
istence that consciously transgressed middle-class conventions and
excluded serious work.10
Playground of the Happy Few
First among these men who were Offenbach’s original audience was Charles
Auguste Louis Joseph, Count de Morny. Not only was he the openly ac-
knowledged illegitimate half-brother of Emperor Napoléon III, he was also
the head of the Corps Legislatif and as such one of the most powerful men
in France. He possessed an “unquenchable nocturnal passion for the filles
du ballet, the theater, and the music hall,” we read in Alan Strauss-Schom’s
2018 The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoléon III.11 We also read there
that Morny had a “sense of superiority over all men in all matters.”12 His
friend and fellow Jockey Club member Edmond D’Alton Shée states:
He made absolutely no attempt to conceal from the world that
he had no political principles or that he held little faith in his fel
low man. Nor did he ever let anything interfere with his personal
freedom.13
It is rather unique in the history of music that such a man as the Count
de Morny was godfather to Offenbach’s only son, and also a close collabo-
rator on various Offenbach shows; this includes writing the libretto for the
social satire M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le… (Mr. Cauliflower will be at
home on …) in 1861.
Morny’s senior secretary was Ludovic Halévy who had daily meetings
and breakfast with his boss at the presidential residence in Hôtel de Lassay.
10 “Die Clique der mit den großen Kurtisanen liierten Lebemänner umfaßte annähernd
hundert fashionable Herren, die fast durchweg der Aristokratie entstammten und eine
unbedingte Autorität in allen Fragen des mondänen Verhaltens besaßen. Ihre Frivol
ität äußerte sich darin, daß sie die Verachtung, die sie für die Bourgeoisie empfanden,
durch ein Dasein bekundeten, das sich absichtlich über die bürgerlichen Konventionen
hinwegsetzte und ernste Arbeit ausschloß.” – Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach
und das Paris seiner Zeit (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1994 [1. edition Amsterdam,
1937]), 220–1.
11 Alan Strauss-Schom, The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoléon III (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 19.
12 Ibid., 20.
13 Edmond D’Alton Shée quoted in Strauss-Schom, The Shadow Emperor, 19.
47
ic background and all of them characterized by a definitive author
ity in all questions of mundane behavior. Their frivolity expressed
itself in their supreme contempt for the bourgeoisie: through an ex
istence that consciously transgressed middle-class conventions and
excluded serious work.10
Playground of the Happy Few
First among these men who were Offenbach’s original audience was Charles
Auguste Louis Joseph, Count de Morny. Not only was he the openly ac-
knowledged illegitimate half-brother of Emperor Napoléon III, he was also
the head of the Corps Legislatif and as such one of the most powerful men
in France. He possessed an “unquenchable nocturnal passion for the filles
du ballet, the theater, and the music hall,” we read in Alan Strauss-Schom’s
2018 The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoléon III.11 We also read there
that Morny had a “sense of superiority over all men in all matters.”12 His
friend and fellow Jockey Club member Edmond D’Alton Shée states:
He made absolutely no attempt to conceal from the world that
he had no political principles or that he held little faith in his fel
low man. Nor did he ever let anything interfere with his personal
freedom.13
It is rather unique in the history of music that such a man as the Count
de Morny was godfather to Offenbach’s only son, and also a close collabo-
rator on various Offenbach shows; this includes writing the libretto for the
social satire M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le… (Mr. Cauliflower will be at
home on …) in 1861.
Morny’s senior secretary was Ludovic Halévy who had daily meetings
and breakfast with his boss at the presidential residence in Hôtel de Lassay.
10 “Die Clique der mit den großen Kurtisanen liierten Lebemänner umfaßte annähernd
hundert fashionable Herren, die fast durchweg der Aristokratie entstammten und eine
unbedingte Autorität in allen Fragen des mondänen Verhaltens besaßen. Ihre Frivol
ität äußerte sich darin, daß sie die Verachtung, die sie für die Bourgeoisie empfanden,
durch ein Dasein bekundeten, das sich absichtlich über die bürgerlichen Konventionen
hinwegsetzte und ernste Arbeit ausschloß.” – Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach
und das Paris seiner Zeit (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1994 [1. edition Amsterdam,
1937]), 220–1.
11 Alan Strauss-Schom, The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoléon III (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 19.
12 Ibid., 20.
13 Edmond D’Alton Shée quoted in Strauss-Schom, The Shadow Emperor, 19.
47
