OPERA SEARCH
Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe returns to the stage in Paris
On 3 December Robinson Crusoe, one of Jacques Offenbach's most idiomatic works, takes the stage in a new production at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris using the acclaimed Offenbach Edition Keck. The high-calibre artistic team is led by director Laurent Pelly and conductor Marc Minkowski, two renowned Offenbach specialists.
Offenbach created his free adaptation of Daniel Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe in 1867 for the Opéra-Comique in Paris. It was an effort by the composer to finally gain a foothold in another important musical theatre in the French capital, beyond the successful and lucrative bouffonneries of his own house. His Robinson Crusoe idiosyncratically interweaves elements of romantic opera and the grotesque, offering sentiment and sensation, depicting fidelity in love, South Sea adventures and cannibalism.
We first encounter the protagonist at home before his departure, followed by the familiar story of the shipwreck, Robinson's castaway homestead and his encounter with the islander Friday. Finally, Robinson's fiancée Edwige and two servants of the family also arrive on the island. All the British travellers narrowly escape angry cannibals and pirates and sail home to Great Britain on the captured pirate ship. This adapted plot is accompanied by melodious, sophisticatedly orchestrated music that, in typical Offenbach fashion, often blurs the line between gravitas and humour. During the Second Empire, the authors used exoticism as bait for an audience that, by the end of the opera, could no longer be sure of its ‘civilised’ superiority over the ‘savages’.
The star of the premiere was mezzo-soprano Célestine Galli-Marié (later to go down in history as the first Carmen) in the trouser role of Friday. Despite its considerable success at the premiere, Robinson Crusoe is one of Offenbach's lesser-known stage works today. Editor Jean-Christophe Keck undertook to sift through the complex sources and restore the original score for future performances. This marks a further achievement in the history of the Offenbach Edition Keck published by Boosey & Hawkes, which has also brought rarely performed works such as Les Fées du Rhin, Fantasio, Barkouf and Le Roi Carotte back to the stage. The new edition of Robinson Crusoe was first heard in 2023 at the West Green House Opera in the UK and was then performed in an abridged, semi-staged form at the Komische Oper in Berlin at the end of 2024.
The new Paris staging is a co-production with the opera houses of Angers-Nantes, Rennes and the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française. The project is led by director and costume designer Laurent Pelly and conductor Marc Minkowski, two great Offenbach champions who have already collaborated on a production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Minkowski conducts Les Musiciens du Louvre, Accentus and a cast including Sahy Ratia, Adèle Charvet and Julie Fuchs. Six performances of Robinson Crusoe will run between 3 and 14 December at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. On 10 January at 8 pm, a recording will be broadcast on France Musique, also available to stream from the station's website and the Radio France app. Further performances of the Pelly production are announced in Angers, Nantes and Rennes in May and June 2026.
> Visit the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées website
> Watch an interview with Laurent Pelly about Robinson Crusoe
The end of each year is high season for Offenbach's music. Highights include the most famous of all Offenbachiades, Orpheus in the Underworld, in a new production using the Offenbach Edition Keck at the Stadttheater in Klagenfurt. Peter Lund is staging the work in his own German text version, with the curtain rising on 11 December.
> Further information on Work: Robinson Crusoé (OEK critical edition)
Image: Jacques Offenbach as Robinson in a caricature by Bertall, 1867 (Jean-Christophe Keck Collection)