The Nice Operetta Festival is celebrating its 12th year; it is a major cultural event for the city of Nice. Melcha Coder, president of the Association for the Promotion of the Opera of Nice (ARON), presents No No Nanette, a musical comedy, and “La vie parisienne,” a comic opera by the French composer Jacques Offenbach.
Each year, 1200 cultural events take place in Nice, averaging 3 per day, and the Operetta Festival has been part of this for the past 12 years. Operetta is a musical style that combines singing, dance, and choreography. Opera, on the other hand, is more traditional, consisting of a sung work, often in Italian. “Operetta proves to be more challenging to stage and prepare,” says Melcha Coder.
It requires excellent singers, sometimes coming from very far, capable of performing various choreographies. Serge Manguette, a dancer in the musical comedy No No Nanette confirms: “we must be versatile and very good.”
Melcha Coder does not accept “mediocrity.” Excellence is the quality necessary to create an operetta worthy of the name. She does not tolerate any lateness, and no delays are granted for team members who are not on time.
French-style musical comedies
The president of the ARON association, in charge of the operetta No No Nanette, announces, “this new kind of operetta will swing and move.” This purely French musical comedy is composed of 8 dancers and a philharmonic orchestra.
La vie parisienne by composer Jacques Offenbach, created on September 25, 1873, will be performed at the Nice opera. A burlesque opera that caricatures Parisian society, intoxication and festivity take the spotlight here. For Serge Manguette, La vie parisienne represents “champagne and elegance.”
An active participation from the city hall
The Operetta Festival thrives thanks to subsidies allocated by the municipality of Nice. It enables this cultural event to face the numerous events that enliven the city of Nice throughout the year.
Melcha Coder declares with pride: “without support from the city hall, we wouldn’t be able to stage all this and thus create all these operettas.” Another contributor, the Regional Council provides financial aid to the Operetta Festival. The total contribution amounts to nearly 30,000 euros.
This sum is still insufficient, as the president of ARON estimates that an operetta costs at least 300,000 euros.
The loyalty of the audience is her reward. Their presence is proved just as important.
