Reyer: Salammbô

Day 364

Reyer: Salammbô

Soloists

Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra de Marseilles

Lawrence Foster

I've been doing some research on performances of French opera in the 1890s and Reyer  (1823-1909) is one of the names which keeps cropping up. His was most notable for Sigurd, his French version of the Nibelungen myths but this opera, based on the novel by Flaubert, was also a repertory piece. Up to the First World War his operas were part of the standard repertory, at least in France, and record collectors will know that most of the French singers who made recordings in the early years of the gramophone often recorded items by Reyer. But his work went out of fashion very quickly - even more so that Meyerbeer - and performances now are few and far between.

Salammbô is a late work (1890) which must be one of the last works in the true French Grand Opera style. It must have seemed very old fashioned even when it was first performed. It has all of the ingredients of the genre: big choruses, dramatic confrontations, ballet, spectacular scenery and lots of off stage effects. But on its own terms I thought that it was a very impressive piece. The drama really takes hold - particularly in the big duet in the third act, and there is very little of the rum-ti-tum 'painting by numbers' that one so often finds in these big French operas. It held my attention throughout its five acts.  It must have been a huge spectacle when it was first put on.

There is no modern recording of Sigurd but there are some unofficial off-air recordings. I certainly hope to add that to my list of operas to listen to next year.

Sousa: Désirée

Day 360

Sousa: Désirée

Soloists

Pocono Pops chorus and orchestra

Jerrold Fisher

This was great fun. Sousa is of course the King of the march. I knew that he had written some light operas but this was my first chance to hear one of them. Désirée dates from 1883 and so is a relatively early work. I had expected it to be an American version of Gilbert and Sullivan but in fact it was much more reminiscent of Offenbach. Indeed it reminded me several times of the recordings of Offenbach made in English made by Sadlers Wells opera in the 1960s. There’s a bit of everything in the score. A waltz song, some patter songs, a sentimental song and some vigorous choruses. All in all great entertainment for Boxing Day. I can see it making a good end of term piece for a school or college production - I don’t think that it would work any more on a fully-professional stage.

Reznicek: Donna Diana

Day 350

Reznicek: Donna Diana

Soloists

Kiel opera chorus 

Kiel philharmonic orchestra

Ulrich Windfuhr

Reznicek is the ultimate ‘one piece’ composer. In fact it is only a tiny part of Donna Diana - the overture - which has kept his memory alive. I’ve always enjoyed the overture - I’ve played it once - and was very interested to see what the rest of the opera was like. Hugely attractive is the answer. I was expecting something very lightweight but in fact some of the music has a real dramatic intensity. It is a reminder that Reznicek was part of the post-Wagner generation (he was born in 1860) and indeed there are moment which could quite easily have found their way in Tristan. Yet elsewhere we get much closer to the spirit of Léhar and Viennese operetta. It really is an intriguing mix and surprisingly it works extremely well. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and am keen to hear more of Reznicek’s music. 

The overture itself is based on music from the opera but it is not just a straight lift. Renzicek very skilfully takes fragments from various different parts of the piece and merges them seamlessly into the lovely piece that is quite rightly one of the great short overtures.  

Reznicek lived right though until 1945 and there was some controversy about whether he had any sort of associations with the Nazis, although there seems to have been no evidence of any serious association. He must have seemed a figure from the remote past by the time of his death. He was however a respected figure: there is a fascinating brief film of him conducting - inevitably - the overture to Donna Diana. I suspect that he must have been heartily sick of it by then. 

Marschner: Der Holzdieb

Day 348

Marschner: Der Holzdieb

Soloists

Southwest radio orchestra

Hans Gierster

Marschner is a composer I much admire. I know Hans Heiling and Der Vampyr well (the latter was another opera performed by the Nottingham University Opera Group before I became a student there) and I have also heard his opera Der Templar und die Jüdin, which is based on Scott’s Ivanhoe. 

This opera was new to me. I thought that it was delightful. It was very much towards the lighter end of Marschner’s  output. It had none of the big dramatic gestures and gothic elements of his two most famous opera, but was very much in the tradition of Weber and the singspiel. Essentially it was a series of musical numbers linked by dialogue. The whole things is quite short (less than an hour) but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Marschner has a real melodic gift and sense of invention. 

Marschner wrote a dozen or so operas but the four I have mentioned in this post appear to be the only ones which have been recorded. This particular one was from a radio broadcast in the 1960s - the dialogue seems to be performed by different actors to the singers and they appear to have been placed in a completely separate studio with a quite different acoustic. But it is the only recording of the opera that there is and despite its imperfections it did give a good account of the piece.

Donizetti: Rita

Day 337

Donizetti: Rita (Deux Hommes et une Femme)

Soloists

Hallé Orchestra

Mark Elder

Perhaps surprisingly, given my enthusiasm for Rossini, I don't have a great deal of experience with Donizetti. I've know Don Pasquale since my student days (it might even have been when I was still at school), ever since seeing a scene from it in one of Geraint Evan's wonderful TV opera masterclasses. It is still one of my favourite operas. But other than that I only know a few of the well known bits and pieces.

Rita is a one act opera with 8 music numbers separated by dialogue. It has a curious history. It was written, with a French text, for the Opéra-Comique in 1841 but for some reason was rejected by the management. A projected performance in Italy didn't come off and it was left unperformed at Donizetti's death in 1848. It finally received its first performance, at the Opéra-Comique in 1860.

It is really hard to imagine why it was turned down originally because I think it is an absolute gem. It fizzes with real energy and humour. Donizetti's Italianate lyricism shines though but it is given a characteristically French tinge with more than a touch of Auber. There are some really good comic scenes - such as when the two men play a card game with the loser  having to marry the rather fearsome Rita. Of course it all ends happily. This was a scintillating piece and I am so glad to have made its acquaintance. 

Humperdinck: Königskinder

Day 336

Humperdinck: Königskinder

Soloists

Chorus and Orchestra of West German Radio

Richard Kraus

This opera has a couple of minor footnotes in operatic history. First because the original goose girl (the starring role written especially for her) Geraldine Farrar was said to have trained the flock of geese who appeared with her on stage. Whether that is true or just something dreamt up by the Metropolitan Opera's publicity department I don't know, but she certainly appeared for her curtain call on the first night holding a goose. The other context in which it is mentioned is that is an early (perhaps the earliest) example of sprechstimme, that half-speaking half-singing style noted with cross headed notes which Schoenberg used in Pierrot Lunaire.

In fact the history books have not got this quite right. Originally Humperdinck did write this as incidental music to a stage play and used sprechstimme there, but once he turned it into an opera almost all of it disappeared - only one line of sprechstimme remains.

Humperdinck is of course famous for Hänsel und Gretel. That is a gorgeous piece which is perhaps the only post-Wagnerian opera to remain in the repertory. Wagner was such an enormously influential figure that all of his followers, and there were many, simply couldn't survive comparison. Königskinder is, if anything, more Wagnerian than Hänsel: indeed at moments it seems to seriously close to direct imitation - the yearning string figure with its appoggiatura could have come straight out of Tristan. But the Wagner-like music is well balanced with the more gentle folksong-like material which is such a feature of Hänsel. Overall I think that Humperdinck got the balance right. There are some longueurs in the score but generally it does keep moving on nicely. There are some gorgeous bits of orchestral writing as well as some very stunning effects - the use of the piano in Act two to represent the bells works extremely well. This was another old recording (1952) so not all of the detail came through, but it was a studio recording rather than an off-air live performance so the quality was a lot better than yesterday's Spontini. Interesting to note that a young Fischer-Dieskau was in the cast. As soon as he opened his mouth his voice was instantly recognisable.

I can't see this ever becoming a repertory piece in the same way as Hänsel (English National Opera did a revival some years ago). It is too long for a children's opera and some of the choral and orchestral writing is as difficult as anything in Wagner so it is not something that could put on a short notice to fill a gap. But I was very pleased to have heard it. 

Spontini: Agnes von Hohenstaufen

Day 335

Spontini: Agnes von Hohenstaufen

Soloists

Maggio Musicale Florence

Vittorio Gui

My enthusiasm for 19th Century French opera, which I have alluded to several times in this notes, can be traced back to the performance of Spontini's La Vestale by the Nottingham University Opera Group in 1976. I sang in the chorus. The idiom, halfway between the classical and romantic traditions, was difficult to  fully appreciate at the time, but the work made a strong impression nonetheless and left with me with a real interest to hear more Spontini and indeed 19th century French opera. I've got to know the two other big French Spontini Operas, Olympie and Fernand Cortez, but although I had heard a few extracts from it I had never listened to the whole of Agnes von Hohenstaufen. This was Spontini's last opera and was written in Germany where he settled for the last part of his life. He had become rather embittered at the eclipse of his style in favour of the more overtly Romantic style exemplified in Der Freischutz.

The Opera was set to a German text but this performance is in Italian (the German version has never been recorded). The recording I listened to was an old off-air performance from the 1950s. It was very muddy in places with lots of stage noise and applause in odd places (presumably in response to what was going on on stage) but enough of the music shone through to enable me to appreciate the piece.

There is a famous anecdote (I've never been able to track it down to its original source and it is probably apocrophal) which concerns a man who was going deaf. He went to his doctor who suggested that they go together to a performance of Fernand Cortez as the shock of noise of the opera might unblock his ears. At the end of the performance he turned to his doctor and said 'it worked - I can hear' only to find his doctor looking back blankly at him: the noise had damaged his eardrums and he was no longer able to hear!'

That reputation for loudness certainly comes through in this opera - the big set pieces are on an impressive scale with some extremely exciting orchestral and vocal effects. But the lyrical side of Spontini is also much in evidence, particularly in some of the duets and ensembles. At his best he really was a force to be reckoned with and you can understand why Berlioz, for example, was so strong an advocate for his music.

But there are weaknesses. Sometime the music does fall into triviality and 'rum-ti-tum'. But most frustrating is Spontini's inability to transition from one section to another. Typically we get and ending and then the orchestra simply lays down another chord in a new key and off we go again. I've commented before on this being a common problem in early and mid 19th century French opera. It took French opera composers a long time before they had really mastered the art of transition.

But this fault, irritating as it is, shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of an appreciation of Spontini's achievement as a major contributor to operatic history. On any level this was an impressive piece. I do hope that Bru Zane take it up in its series of opera recordings - they have already done La Vestale and Olympie . It would be really good to hear a studio performance in a modern recording so that you can appreciate all of the subtleties in the score. 

Halévy: La Reine de Chypré

Day 319

Halévy: La Reine de Chypré

Soloists

Flemish Radio Choir

Chamber Orchestra of Paris

Hervé Niquet

Halévy is one of the giants of 19th century French Grand Opera. He is most notably for La Juive, which was performed by the University opera group the year before I went up to university so I missed the opportunity to take part, but this opera was his second great contribution to the repertory.

It has a curious place in the footnotes of musical history in that Wagner was commissioned early in his life to prepare the vocal score of the opera. I followed this performance using that vocal score and there were plenty of places where the recording offered a significantly different text. The background to the complex textual history of the score is well set out in the booklet accompanying this recording - another example of the very high production values of these CD sets from Bru Zane which have brought so many important French operas back to life.

There was some tremendous music in this opera - particularly, as one would expect, in the big set piece ensembles, which had tremendous energy and excitement. But there is plenty of quieter, more contemplative music as well, and overall the opera has a really good balance of material.

As ever with French operas of this period you have to take the rough with the smooth. Like Meyerbeer Halévy is no master of transition.  There are some very abrupt gear changes which really grate. There is also a fair amount of rum-ti-tum music of no particular interest. And the end is rather underwhelming. The death of the villain is over in a few bars and the final air by the soprano is rather trivial. Interestingly the notes to the CD remind us that often the key attraction of the final scene was a coup de théâtre , where the scenery and costumes for the finale were the main attraction and would often be met with loud applause covering the music.  But this weakness in finales is something which is characteristic of 19th century French opera - it is something I have commented on before in these note.

So not an out-and-out masterpiece then, but at its best this is an opera of very high quality and dramatic force. I can't imagine it ever being revived on stage other than as a curiosity - the whole ethos of French Grand Opera is so far removed from our current view of what is effective in the theatre. I can't help thinking that this is our loss.

Weir: A night at the Chinese opera

Day 315

Judith Weir: A night at the Chinese opera

Soloists

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Andrew Parrott

I’ve been lucky enough to play several pieces by Judith Weir over the last few years. I’ve enjoyed exploring her music from the inside. What strikes me most is the clarity of her orchestral writing - her ear for sonorities is quite superb.

This opera was in many ways Weir’s breakthrough piece. It has so many facets. There is real drama in the outer acts and real fun in the parody of a Chinese opera in the middle act. And Weir has a natural affinity with word setting (she wrote the libretto herself) and the dramatic pacing is beautifully judged. Any British opera composer is inevitably in the shadow of Benjamin Britten and clearly his influence clearly shines though the score. But in many ways the stronger resonances are Tippett and Birtwistle. 

But ultimately Weir has her own voice and this is a major achievement for a first opera by a composer in her early thirties. I look forward to getting to know more of her operas - there are several to go at.

Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto di Susanna

Day 314

Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto Di Susanna

Judith Howarth

Àngel Òdena

Oviedo Philharmonia

Friedrich Haider

I though that this was delightful

I knew the overture, along with a few other overtures and intermezzi by Wolf-Ferrai, but I had never heard any of the operas in full. This is a short opera (45 mins) for two singers (and a silent character) - a man and his wife. The plot is wafer thin. The husband comes home and smells cigarette smoke, assumes that his wife is having an affair and storms out. He comes back in surreptitiously to catch her with her lover and sees that she is smoking a cigarette. They make up and enjoy a final smoke together.

Wolf-Ferrari clearly had great fun writing this score. It dates from 1909 and the spirit of Verdi's Falstaff , which was only 15 or so years old at the time of writing, is clear to see. In fact this is almost certainly the most successful post Verdi comic opera , with perhaps the exception of Gianni Schicchi, which followed Wolf-Ferrari's score a decade of so late. I particularly enjoyed the very sensuous music - almost Straussian in its luxuriance - for the scene in which the heroine smokes her cigarette. There is surely a nod to Tristan und Isolde here.  The whole thing is fast paced and dramatic, thought there are moments of reflection and some very attractive melodies. It was a real find.

Bellini: La Sonnambula

Day 287

Bellini: La Sonnambula

Soloists

London Opera Chorus

National Philharmonic Orchestra

Richard Bonynge

I don’t know much Bellini. I did see a performance of Norma years ago but as far as I remember I haven’t heard any of his operas. I know some of the famous arias but that’s about it. As far as La Sonnambula is concerned I know the famous sleepwalking aria Ah non Credea from the recording by Adelina Patti, a fascinating glimpse into 19th century performance traditions and also the ensemble D’un Pensiero, which Sullivan parodied so brilliantly in Trial by Jury.

Bellini has a reputation as a melodist and there is no doubt that the finest parts of the score are the lyrical moments, particularly those where Bellini’s ability to devise melodies with a real overlay of dreamlike melancholy really has an impact. But some of the vigorous moments have an energy and momentum which creates a real sense of drive. But, as with many Italian operas of the period there is also a fair amount of what I call ‘painting by numbers’ music, where the composer goes into autopilot using all of the cliches of early-romantic opera. This is especially true of the end. After the beautiful atmospheric sleepwalking scene Bellini brings down the curtain with what can only be described as a ‘jolly knees up’ of a final ensemble. It really does jar.

All told, however, I really enjoyed the opera. I won’t displace my affection for Rossini but it certainly expands my knowledge of the broader Italian opera repertoire.

Smetana: Hubička

Day 284

Smetana: Hubička (the Kiss)

Soloists

Chorus and Orchestra of the Janáček opera Brno

František Vajnar

My knowledge of Smetana is fairly limited - I know Vltava and a couple more of pieces from Ma Vlast, and the E minor string quartet and did see the Bartered Bride many years ago. But thats about it.

The Kiss is a later opera (1876), by which time Smetana was completely deaf. But you would never believe it from this music, which is full of life and vigour.  As you might expect that spirit of Czech folk music and the dance permeates the entire score and gives it a real sense of energy. But it is not all dance music - there are some very tender passages for the two main characters - they finally kiss at the end of the opera after a series of misadventures.

The mood changes for the second act, which is set in the Forest where some smugglers are hiding. Smetana counjours up a real sense of menace here which took me a bit by surprise. To be honest I thought that the second act flagged a bit after this scene but all does sort itself out by the end, with some strong music to bring the opera to a rousing conclusions.  I’d certainly want to explore Smetana’s operatic repertory in more details after this project has finished.

Weber: Abu Hassan

Day 257

Weber: Abu Hassan

Soloists

Dresden Statskapelle Orchestra and Chorus

Heinz Rögner

Weber has a curious place in the operatic world. There is no doubt that his operas are hugely important in the development of the genre but they don’t feature as prominently in the operatic repertoire as they should. Of the big three two - Oberon and Euryanthe - are best with problematic libretti and structural - and the other Der Freischütz is so immersed in German culture that it doesn’t translate well into other cultural environments.

Abu Hassan is a short one act opera dating from 1811. I found it delightful. It occupies an interesting place between Die Zauberflöte and the operas of Rossini. It is as light as a feather and full of attractive melodies and piquant orchestration. I am sure that it would make a really good curtain raiser.

Martinů: Ariane

Day 256

Martinů: Ariane

Soloists

Essener Philharmoniker

Thomáš Netopil

I don’t have much experience of Martinů. I’ve played a couple of his shorter pieces and have heard at least one of his symphonies but don’t really have a feel for what he is about as a composer. This short opera is a late piece which he wrote as a displacement activity while working on his large scale final opera The Greek Passion. The story is a deliberate homage to Monteverdi’s Arianna’s lament and the work finishes with an (in the context of a short opera) extended lamentation for the solo soprano. This certainly had something of the sprit of Monteverdi though it was never mere pastiche. Perhaps the most immediate attractive music was the three short interludes between scenes. Neo-classical Stravinsky here was the most obvious point of reference - indeed the first of the three could have been incorporated into the Rakes Progress without anybody suspecting anything untoward. 

I suspect that the ‘real’ Martinů is found in the longer operas and perhaps I need to devote some time to them. But I certainly enjoyed listening to Ariane , though I wouldn’t rate it, at least on first hearing, as an out-and-out masterpiece.

Holst: Sāvitri

 Day 255

Holst: Sāvitri

Soloists

Purcell Singers

English Chamber Orchestra

Imogen Holst

Like most people my first experience of Holst was The Planets - I think that it was the first or second LP that I ever purchased. I've played it a couple of time since. I also played the two splendid suites for military band in the youth wind band and conducted the ballet music to the Perfect Fool. I've heard other bits and pieces over the years but have never explored his music in depth.

Apparently Holst had many attempts at writing an opera before embarking on Sāvitri. He had tried writing very large scale opera before tuning to this this early example of a chamber opera - for 3 solo voices, female chorus. double string quartet, double bass, two flutes and cor anglais.  I thought that it was a very effective piece, particularly in this performance led by the incomparable Janet Baker. It is quite unlike much of the music being written in England at the time (1916). The textures are light and there is considerable rhythmic freedom. I particularly enjoyed the very inventive music for the wordless female chorus -a reminder that Holst was working on The Planets, which of course uses a wordless female chorus in the final movement.

The only passages which didn't quite come off for me were the occasional moments for the full ensemble , where one detected traces of the Wagnerian influence that Holst had come under earlier in his life and which had not quite worked though his system. But all in all it was a fascinating work and I can understand why so many commentators have rated it highly. Perhaps the very stilted language of the libretto (the composer's own) might get in the way for some modern listeners but that is a small price to pay for some really absorbing music.

Puccini: Il Tabarro

Day 254

Puccini: Il Tabarro

Soloists

BBC Singers

BBC Philharmonic

Gianandrea Noseda

Puccini was definitely beyond the pale in my student days. In his book Opera as Drama Joseph Kerman famously described Tosca as a ‘shabby little shocker’ and that was fairly typical of the prevailing ethos of the time.  Yes you could go to the opera house and enjoy a good weep at La Bohème, but you couldn’t regard it as music worthy of serious attention. As a result it did take me a while to appreciate Puccini, but I how can see that he was an absolute master of musical drama - indeed his sense of dramatic pacing is second to none.

I’d not heard Il Tabarro before. I thought it was a tremendous piece. The opening scene sets the atmosphere beautifully with the gentle rocking of the river  and the noises of the city at sunset beautifully portrayed. Then Puccini has some fun evoking the music of the organ grinder with clarinets playing in consecutive sevenths. Then as the drama unfold the mood darkens and Puccini gradually drives up the tension. He was a master at creating the atmosphere of menace. Perhaps only the very end is a slight disappointment - the final chords do seem a bit perfunctory  - I have seen it suggested elsewhere the Puccini didn’t always quite know how to end his operas and I can see why people might think that.

What struck me is Puccini’s supreme mastery as an orchestrator. The contrast with Strauss’ Daphne was very telling. Strauss is usually held up one of the great orchestrators but I found so much of that score self indulgent with thick textures filled with superfluous detail. Puccini by contrast is a model of clarity with not a note wasted and a real ear for orchestral sonority. He was a complete man of the theatre in everything he did.

Walton: The Bear

Day 253

Walton: The Bear

Soloists

English Chamber Orchestra

James Lockhart

My first encounter with Walton was playing Crown Imperial in youth orchestra and I got to know Facade when I was still at school. Since then I have heard most of the major works but The Bear was new to me. It is a chamber opera for 3 voices and a small orchestra and was first performed at the Aldburgh Festival in  1967. 

The obvious comparison is with Britten, and there are certainly some moments in the score which could be mistaken for Britten but Walton's score is more eclectic, with a lot of hints at other music, from French Cabaret, to English Music Hall and , apt for an opera set in Russian, more than a hint of Stravinsky. There are also passages which could have come straight out of Bernstein's Candide. Walton clearly had a lot of fun writing it. It is perhaps surprising that he took so long before writing an opera. Facade pointed out his gift for musical humour early in his career and there are plenty of witty moments elsewhere in his output.

I certainly enjoyed listening to this. Perhaps the decision to have two low male voices and a mezzo soprano made some passages a bit heavier going that they might otherwise have been but the opera moves along at a good pace and, as ever with Walton, the orchestration is virtuosic and always inventive. The score indicated quite a few places where there could be cuts and perhaps Walton was concerned that the opera was perhaps just a little too long for a one-act piece.  It was first performed in conjunction with Berkeley's Castaway but more recent revivals have coupled with with a variety of other pieces. It is perhaps too long as a curtain raiser but not long enough as a complete opera in its own right.

Strauss: Daphne

Day 252

Strauss: Daphne

Soloists

WDR symphony orchestra and chorus

Semyon Bychkov

I’m back from my holiday so no more sea-inspired pieces. Instead I want to start to fill in some of the gaps of major composers who I have not yet featured in the project. The first is Richard Strauss. I’ve never been a Strauss enthusiast - indeed I like to shock my orchestral friends and colleagues by saying that I much prefer the music of Johann Strauss to that of Richard!  To me Strauss often has dazzling ideas at the start of a piece but then rather falls into a rut. I recently played Don Juan: the opening is of course a marvel, but so much of what follows is rather routine and even manufactured. You could say the same for many of the big Strauss tone poems - Ein Heldenleben has a very striking first couple of minutes but after that I am not sure that I have ever managed to pay attention long enough to hear the whole work.

The only Strauss opera I have seen is Salome, which I have seen a couple of times - once rather incongruously in a big tent in Sheffield, though I have also heard a few of the others, Daphne however was new to me, I have to say I found it really hard going. I find Strauss’ harmonic language difficult to bear at time with its constant chromatic slipping and sliding and his orchestration is so thick and complex that is becomes glutenous far too often. The constant filigree detail in the texture and the sheer number of notes to me rapidly becomes very tiring. 

At the end of the opera the heroine gets absorbed into a tree. The transformation music is often held up as one of the great moments in the composer’s output. I certainly found it to be the most appealing part of the opera but even so I can’t say that I was gripped by it in the way that I half expected to be, judging by some of the descriptions of the music that I have read. Those very high violin figures at the end were quite hard to listen to and gave the music an edge which I don’t think that the composer could really have intended. 

I had hoped that devoting some time to this opera and giving it serious attention might have opened up the music for Strauss for me in a way that has not happened before. But alas it didn’t. Daphne is a comparatively short opera but time listening to it did seem to pass very slowly. It certainly won’t be trying out any of the longer Strauss operas any time soon.

Paisiello: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Day 238

Paisiello: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Soloists

Putbus festival opera orchestra and chorus

Wilhelm Keitel

This is another in this series of operas by the 'wrong' composer.  It was certainly an audacious step by the young Rossini to tackle this subject given the fame of Paisiello's opera, particularly as Rossini's libretto followed much the same plot outline. It is almost as if somebody like Mark-Anthony Turnage had started his operatic career by writing another Peter Grimes.

I'm a great Rossini enthusiast - though the Barber is far from my favourite Rossini opera - so it is perhaps unsurprising that I feel that history has got it right in its choice of which Barber should remain in the repertory.  Not that there is anything wrong with Paisiello's version - I enjoyed listening to it a lot. It struck me as being like Mozart without the genius. A completely mastery of the mature classical opera style but little that was anything more than the work of a very accomplished composer who knew how to write for an audience. There were a couple of times when I felt that he did achieve something more. There is a comic trio involving a lot of sneezing, which made me smile, and a soprano aria in Act two which had some attractive harmony and some emotional depth. But what was lacking more than anything is the manic energy that Rossini brought to the same story.  Perhaps that is an unfair comparison - Rossini was writing a generation later and had a wider variety of musical language to draw on - but if Rossini can sometime be cliched he is never bland and much of this opera did seem to be rather bland.

I can imagine that it would be fun to watch in the theatre, and certainly I was glad to hear it today, but give me Rossini any day.

Leoncavallo: La Bohème

Day 231

Leoncavallo La Bohème

Soloists

Chorus and Orchestra of la Fenice Venice

Jan Latham Koenig

This is one of the most well know examples of operas by the 'wrong' composer. Unlike some of the other examples the 'right' and 'wrong' composers were working on their operas at more or less the same time - indeed there was some dispute between them as to who had the rights to the story. 

I saw a performance of Cav and Pag at the ENO (Sadlers Wells Opera as it was then) on a school trip - I can't say I remember much about it and I don't think that I have listened to I Paglicci or anything else by Leoncavallo since then. So I approached this with a very open mind.

My initial reactions were very positive, I thought that the first act was splendid. It had an energy and a lightness of touch which really suited the happy goings on of the young friends eating and drinking at the café momus knowing that they had nothing to pay the bill with.  Indeed I think Leoncavallo matched, perhaps even surpassed, Puccini in his characterisation of the friends. There was a distinct French tinge to some of the music here and I wouldn't have surprised me if I had been told that it was by Massenet.

In Puccini's La Boheme that opening scene can seem a bit of a drag (even though it is quite short) because you know you are waiting for the moment that Rudolfo and Mimi meet and sing their love duet. Nothing else really matters. The problem with Leoncavallo's work is that there is no equivalent emotional moment. In his opera it is Marcello who is the tenor and he is love with Musetta who is a mezzo. That doesn't really work for me and in any case there is nothing remotely like the love duet for them to sing. Rudolfo here is a baritone and doesn't really seem a well rounded character. Mimi is a soprano and has some affecting music  but she is not a dominant character and only really emerges towards the end of the opera. Her death scene - one of the great moment in the Puccini - is actually rather perfunctory and the opera ends rather ineffectively.

So a real curiosity. There are lots of references to other operas in the score - les Huguenots and Tristan among them - and some very attractive music in places. But after that tremendous first act is was a bit of a disappointment: posterity made the right call!