Offenbach's first commercially performed dramatic work, the opéra comique Pépito, premiered in Paris at the Théâtre des Variétés on 28 October 1853. This article examines it from historical and musical perspectives. First, I argue that its production at the Théâtre des Variétés is an example of what Mark Everist has called ‘the politics of genre’, in this case the attempts by managers of Parisian boulevard theatres to circumvent the hierarchical system of genre imposed on them by the government. Offenbach may have been directly complicit by offering an opéra comique to a theatre that was legally not allowed to perform the genre and by supplying a musical element – ‘local colour’ – as part of the political strategy by which the manager of the Variétés sneaked the opéra comique past the authorities. The subterfuge did not work, however: I argue that Pépito was recognised by audiences as an opéra comique primarily through the character of its music. A discussion of the score, and the musical competence of the original cast and orchestra of the Variétés, allows a partial reconstruction of the actual sound of the first performance of Pépito. Finally, I consider the later history of Pépito, and in a postscript suggest that a faint memory of Offenbach's Spanish opéra comique may have resurfaced twenty-two years later when Georges Bizet, who became part of Offenbach's circle in the late 1850s, was composing his own Spanish opéra comique, Carmen.

中文翻译：

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奥芬巴赫、佩皮托和杂耍剧院：第二帝国元年的政治和流派

奥芬巴赫的第一部商业戏剧作品，喜剧歌剧院，于 1853 年 10 月 28 日在巴黎综艺剧院首演。本文从历史和音乐的角度对其进行了探讨。首先，我认为它在 Theatre des Varietés 的制作是 Mark Everist 所称的“体裁政治”的一个例子，在这种情况下，巴黎大道剧院的经理们试图规避被强加给他们的体裁等级制度。政府。奥芬巴赫可能通过提供喜剧歌剧院到一个法律上不允许表演该流派的剧院，并通过提供一种音乐元素——“当地色彩”——作为 Variétés 经理偷偷摸摸的政治策略的一部分喜剧歌剧院经过当局。然而，这个诡计没有奏效：我认为佩皮托被观众认可为喜剧歌剧院主要是通过其音乐的特点。对乐谱的讨论，以及Variétés 的原始演员和管弦乐队的音乐能力，允许部分重建第一次演出的实际声音佩皮托. 最后，我考虑一下后来的历史佩皮托，并在后记中暗示奥芬巴赫的西班牙语喜剧歌剧院22 年后，当乔治·比才（Georges Bizet）在 1850 年代后期成为奥芬巴赫圈子的一员时，可能会重新出现，他正在创作自己的西班牙语喜剧歌剧院,卡门.