In Paris during the Second Empire, the composer Jacques Offenbach discovers an unknown singer, the sopranoHortense Schneider. He writes lead roles for her in his stage works which make her famous in France and beyond. When he consoles Schneider at the end of her various love affairs their relationship develops and Offenbach falls in love with her. While she is unfaithful to him, he continues to write more operettas featuring her, including several of his most famous works.
Filming took place at Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne) and at the Studios de Boulogne.[2] Printemps's costumes were by Christian Dior.[2] Fresnay and Printemps had been partners in private life since 1932 when her marriage to Sacha Guitry broke up,[3] and they had worked together since Coward's Conversation Piece in April 1934 where he won excellent reviews, and their stage partnership was greatly admired.[4] In the same year Printemps and Fresnay had a screen hit in Abel Gance's La dame aux camélias, and between then and 1951 they appeared together in eight films.[5] Raymonde Allain had already played the Empress Eugénie in the 1937 film Les Perles de la couronne.
The music was by Offenbach, arranged by Louis Beydts.[2] The film credits end by a dialogue between the screenwriter and Offenbach in shadow show:
« Marcel Achard. Excusez-moi des libertés que j'ai prise avec la vérité. (I'm sorry for the liberties I took with the truth)
Jacques Offenbach. Oh, j'ai l'habitude… Mais j'espère que vous n'avez pas touché à ma musique ! (Oh, I'm used to that... but I hope that you didn't play with my music)
Marcel Achard. Bien sûr que non, mon cher maître ! (Of course not dear maestro!) »
The reviewer in Sight and Sound described La Valse de Paris as "a stylised musical" and praised Fresnay's "delightful, lightly caricatured portrayal of Offenbach, and noted Printemps's "grace and waywardness and allure".[6] Although the first screen work with the composer as principal character, Offenbach scholar Jean-Claude Yon considers the film's direction as "casual", with Achard resorting to clichés; he also finds Printemps unconvincing as Schneider, spoiling the subtilty of Fresnay personation. From a marxist approach of Siegfried Kracauer (a major German biographer of 1938) and the Offenbach in Montmartre of Manuel Rosenthal (referring to the ballet Gaîté Parisienne, the same year) Achard's 1950s Offenbach is "precious" with little to do with the real person.[7]
^Catherine de la Roche. Film week in Cannes. Sight and Sound. May 1950, Vol.19 No.3, p.106.
^Yon, Jean-Claude. La carrière posthume d'un musicien ou Offenbach aux Enfers. In: Histoire, économie et société, 2003, 22ᵉ année, n°2. L'opéra, à la croisée de l'histoire et de la musicologie. pp. 268 & 270.
Bibliography
Hayward, Susan. French Costume Drama of the 1950s: Fashioning Politics in Film. Intellect Books, 2010.
