Episode 480. Bacquier Encore

Episode 480. Bacquier Encore

Allons, enfants de la patrie! Let’s celeberate Bastille Day in style! And what better exemplar of the power and élan of French music than the great Gabriel Bacquier?! It was only about a year ago that I published an episode featuring Bacquier singing art song. Today’s episode combines Bacquier in his more familiar guise as an opera singer, with further (and even rarer) recordings of him singing mélodies. About a year ago I coughed up a lot of dough for a super-expensive and super-rare 2-LP set entitled Panorama de la Mélodie française in which Bacquier shared the vocal honors with a French coloratura soprano who is virtually forgotten today. Today we hear his contribution to that rare 1964 release featuring songs by the usual suspects: Fauré, Debussy, Duparc, and Hahn, alongside some less-familiar repertoire by Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and Lalo. It came out to not quite enough music for a full episode, so I have supplemented it with excerpts from a great, but nearly forgotten, triumph of Bacquier’s: his assumption of the title role of French composer Daniel-Lesur’s 1968 opera, Andrea del Sarto. (Astute listeners will remember that last week I played Alain Vanzo singing a selection from this same piece.) In addition, I offer selections from two different 1963 aria recitals by Bacquier, one in Italian, the other in French. This assortment of material reasserts Bacquier’s versatility, his solid technique, even the beauty of his voice at that point in his career. As his voice aged, Bacquier gradually assumed more bass roles and character parts but throughout the 1960s, his voice retained its youthful beauty even as his characterizations gained in precision and power. Along with a handful of other French singers during that era, Bacquier was the greatest of the great.

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

Grands Airs d’Opéras français et italiens. Gabriel Bacquier, Orchestra conducted by Jésus Etcheverry [1963]

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte: Deh, vieni alla finestra (Don Giovanni). Louise Valmaggia, mandolin
• Hector Berlioz, Almire Gandonnière, Gérard de Narval [after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]: Devant la maison (La Damnation de Faust)
• Charles Gounod, Michel Carré, Jules Barbier [after William Shakespeare]: Mab, la reine des mensonges (Roméo et Juliette)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte [after Pierre Beaumarchais]: Vedrò, mentr’io sospiro (Le nozze di Figaro)
• Jacques Offenbach, Jules Barbier [after E.T.A. Hoffmann, as adapted by Jules Barbier, Michel Carré]: Scintille, diamant (Les Contes d’Hoffmann)
• Giuseppe Verdi, Arrigo Boito [after William Shakespeare]: Credo in un Dio crudel (Otello)
• Léo Delibes, Edmond Gondinet, Philippe Gille [after Pierre Loti]: Lakmé, ton doux regard se voile (Lakmé)
• Vincenzo Bellini, Carlo Pepoli: Ah, per sempre io ti perdei (I Puritani)
• Ambroise Thomas, Michel Carré, Jules Barbier [after William Shakespeare]: Être ou ne pas être (Hamlet)

[Jean-Yves] Daniel-Lesur [after Alfred de Musset]: two excerpts from Andrea del Sarto.  Gabriel Bacquier, Manuel Rosenthal, Orchestre National de l’ORTF [1974]

• Act I, Tableau 1. Lamento. Lucrèce, ô Lucrèce, mon seul bien ici-bas
• Acte II, Tableau IV. Mort d’Andrea et Choeur final. Je ne veux savoir ni le temps de passer ni le temps de souffrir. Jacques Mars, Henri Gui

Panorama de la Mélodie française. Gabriel Bacquier, Catherine Brilli [1964]

• Jules Massenet, François Coppée: Sérénade du Passant
• Camille Saint-Saëns, Victor Hugo: Les pas d’armes du Roi Jean
• Gabriel Fauré, Sully Prudhomme: Les Berceaux, Op. 23/1
• Édouard Lalo, André Theuriet: Marine
• Ernest Chausson, Maurice Bouchor: Le temps des lilas (Poème de l’amour et de la mer, Op. 19)
• Claude Debussy, Paul Verlaine: Il pleure dans mon coeur (Ariettes oubliées, L. 60/2)
• Reynaldo Hahn, Paul Verlaine: D’une prison
• Henri Duparc, Leconte de Lisle: Phidylé
• César Franck, Louis de Fourcaud: Nocturne