Beschreibung
The first of its kind, this is a customized La Duchesse-only audition cut of "Vous aimez le danger...Ah! que j'aime les militaires" from Jacques Offenbach's "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" (1867). In the past, singers wishing to audition for this role would have to make a series of awkward cuts to eliminate the gaps created by the choral parts when performing this excerpt. The current edition omits those passages and, as a result, noticeably reduces the page count. In addition, this new engraving is remarkably clearer than the existing vocal score, which has deteriorated from age and is cluttered with instrumental cues that may not be relevant to a sight-reading audition pianist.
The piano reduction itself has not been simplified or drastically altered (at the commissioner's request), although the engraving features minor changes from the original edition (for example, eliminating cross-staff chord notation and inserting a few logical enharmonic respellings).