“You have a keen eye, monsieur. It’s only the women of Paris who truly know how to take a walk.” Of Jacques Offenbach’s 100 or so light operas, La Vie Parisienne was the first to cast an eye on Sin City as he and his contemporaries knew it, overrun by moneyed nincompoops from abroad with no wickeder objective than to ogle local females running their everyday errands. Mounted in 1866, La Vie Parisienne targeted the mobs of tourists expected at the Exposition Universelle the following year. Napoleon III and Eugénie loved it, and so, when they arrived for the exhibition, did Czar Alexander II and the Prince of Wales. But the heavily censored, musically simplified edition was a far cry from the naughty lark Offenbach and his collaborators originally conceived. Recently discovered in an archive, their unreconstructed scenes of Paris life have been kicking around for a few seasons now in a production staged and dressed by the one and only Christian Lacroix. The discarded fourth of five acts is back in place, along with some superior numbers and copious vocal fancywork left on the cutting-room floor because the first-night cast couldn’t sing them. Fun as it is, the new La Vie Parisienne isn’t transformative. As before, it’s a soufflé of entertainment, light on plot, light on insight, and lightest of all on sex. —Matthew Gurewitsch