Les Deux Aveugles
Les deux aveugles (French pronunciation: [le dø avœɡl], The Two Blind Men or The Blind Beggars) is an 1855 one-act French bouffonerie musicale (operetta) by Jacques Offenbach. The libretto was written by Jules Moinaux and was a condensation of his 3-act Les musiciens ambulants.
The half-hour long piece is a comic sketch about two (supposedly) blind beggars, consisting of an overture and four numbers. Offenbach was bold in making light of the disabled poor, but he believed that his patrons would see the humour of the piece. Most Parisians had been pestered by beggars on Parisian street corners, and Offenbach's blind beggars were con men, rather than deserving outcasts of society. The little piece was an instant hit, praised for its catchy dance tunes, and it soon spread Offenbach's name and music around the world.
Les deux aveugles premiered on the opening night of the Bouffes-Parisiens on 5 July 1855 at the company's first theatre, the tiny Salle Lacaze on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. It was the hit of the evening and was performed at the Salle Lacaze into the fall, making stars of the comedians who appeared in it. After Offenbach's new winter theatre, the Salle Choiseul, opened in December, the show continued to be presented there. It had become so successful, that Louis-Napoléon invited Offenbach's company to perform it for representatives to the Congress of Paris in the Salon de Diane in the Palace of the Tuileries on 28 February 1856. A revised version was presented in Paris at a matinee gala at the Opéra-Comique's second Salle Favart on 28 May 1858, with revivals on 6 November 1900, 14 December 1910, and 12 December 1934.
The piece was first seen in Berlin at Kroll's on 10 March 1856 and in Vienna at the Carltheater on 19 April, where it played as part of a tour by the French actor Pierre Levassor from the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. The first work by Offenbach to be presented in Vienna, it strongly influenced the subsequent career of Karl Treumann[]. On 27 June 1856 Levassor and his partner Jules Lefort gave the first performance in London, a concert version at the Hanover Square Rooms, and it was also part of the opening night of the Bouffes-Parisiens' first London season in 1857, which ran at St James's Theatre from 20 May to 14 July. It was given in Antwerp (in French) on 21 November 1856,New York at the Metropolitan Music Hall on 31 August 1857,Buenos Aires on 13 October 1861, and Saigon, the first opera ever performed there, in the autumn of 1864.
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