Le château à Toto

Le château à Toto (Toto’s castle) is an opéra bouffe in three acts of 1868 with music by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. It is situated in an important sequence of fifteen opera works and revivals by Offenbach between 1867 and 1869.

Offenbach began work on the piece in January 1868 while staying in Nice; he was also composing Les brigands and Vert-Vert at the time. The piece was premiered in the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris but achieved nothing like the success of his previous venture at that theatre, La Vie parisienne. Despite having as many disguises as the earlier work, and some isolated successful numbers such as the ‘café-concert’ song of the rural postman (where he debates the merits of long or short legs, and the value of the penny-farthing), the work closed by the end of July.

After the initial run, a two-act version was staged at the Palais-Royal on 16 December 1868 with Lucy Arbell as Toto, but this closed by the end of the year. The work was seen at the Carltheater in Vienna in February 1869.

The critical edition of Le château à Toto in the Offenbach Edition Keck has been performed in Frankfurt (2003) and at the Offenbach Festival des Châteaux de Bruniquel (2008).

Although no complete recording is available, excerpts have appeared on the anthologies 'Offenbach au menu' and 'Entre Nous'.

Hector de la Roche-Trompette, called 'Toto', has blown his fortune in the pleasures of Paris, and returns home in order to auction his ancestral home. The neighbouring Baron Jean de Crécy-Crécy plans to take advantage of this opportunity to win the centuries-old feud between the Crécy-Crécys and the Roche-Trompettes, and use the castle as kennels and stables. The local notary Ernest Massepain is organising the sale. Toto, accompanied by the Marquis Raoul de la Pépinière and the Vicomtesse de La Farandole come to stay at Catherine’s farm. Raoul is fascinated by Catherine who browbeats her admirer Pitou. Toto is moved by the affection shown to him by the daughter of the Baron, Jeanne.

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Wikipedia