Episode 343. Over-the-Top Sopranos, French Edition
SOCIAL SHARE
SUBSCRIPTION PLATFORM
As a follow-up to my Mezzos on the Verge series, which seemed to resonate with so many of you, today I present the first in a new ongoing series, Over-the-Top Sopranos. As I first began exploring this repertoire, my first thoughts were focused on Italian repertoire. But then I gave myself the challenge of focusing on the French style instead, thinking that I would not have as easy a time of it. Was I ever wrong! There is such a profusion French (and non-French) singers going to the brink with life or death performances of French music that thrills one to the core. Naturally I focus on familiar composers of both French grand opera (Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod) and opéra-comique (Massenet, Bizet) but, as always with Countermelody, there are repertoire surprises along the way, including operas by Ernest Reyer and Sylvio Lazzari. And the wealth of sopranos heard here boggles the mind: again ranging from favorites such as Ninon Vallin, Rosa Ponselle, Mariella Devia, Germaine Lubin, Elisabeth Rethberg, and Carol Neblett, to such lesser-known lights as Andrée Esposito, Françoise Pollet, Madeleine Sibille, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Charlotte Tirard, and Margarete Teschemacher, alongside many others. This is the kind of episode I absolutely love to produce, one rich in both discoveries and old favorites, performed by old and new favorites. Goûtez-vous-en!
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Jules Massenet, Alfred Blau, Louis de Gramont [after Denis Pyramus]: Esprits de l’air! Esprits de l’onde! (Esclarmonde). Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni, Hélène Parraguin, Patrick Fournillier, Orchestra of the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest [live Saint-Étienne, Fall 1992]
Charles Gounod, Jules Barbier, Michel Carré [after William Shakespeare]: Amour, ranime mon courage (Roméo et Juliette). Mariella Devia, Alain Guignal, Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Parma [live Parma XII.1999]
Charles Gounod, Michel Carré [after Frédéric Mistral]: Voici la vaste plaine… En marche, ainsi que Maguelonne [Air de la Crau] (Mireille). Andrée Esposito, Jean Périsson, Orchestre de l’ORTF [live Paris 01.VII.1971]
Jules Massenet, Louis Gallet [after Anatole France]: Dis-moi que je suis belle (Thaïs). Carol Neblett, Knud Anderson, Orchestra of the New Orleans Opera [live 14.IV.1973]
Georges Bizet, Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy [after Prosper Mérimée]: Tu ne m’aimes donc plus? [Final Scene] (Carmen). Rosa Ponselle, René Maison, Orchestra conducted by Louis Hasselmans [live Boston 28.III.36]
Jules Massenet, Henri Meilhac, Philippe Gille [after Abbé Prévost]: Toi? Vous!… N’est-ce plus ma main [Saint-Sulpice Scene] (Manon). Ninon Vallin, Miguel Villabella, Orchestra conducted by François Ruhlmann [1932]
Giacomo Meyerbeer, Eugène Scribe, Émile Deschamps [after Prosper Mérimée; unknown German translator]: Tu l’as dit, oui tu m’aimes [Dieses Wort deiner Liebe] (Les Huguenots [Die Hugenotten]. Margarete Teschemacher, Marcel Wittrisch, Erich Ortmann, Staatskapelle Berlin [1932]
Fromental Halévy, Eugène Scribe: Lorsqu’à toi je me suis donnée (La juive). Elisabeth Rethberg, Giovanni Martinelli, Gaetano Merola, San Francisco Opera Orchestra [live broadcast 30.X.1936]
Ernest Reyer, Camille du Locle, Alfred Blau [after Nibelungenlied]: Salut, splendeur du jour (Sigurd). Germaine Lubin, Orchestra conducted by Henry Defosse [1930]
Charles Gounod, Jules Barbier, Michel Carré [after Gérard de Nerval]: Plus grand dans son obscurité (La Reine de Saba). Charlotte Tirard [1929]
Jules Massenet, Armand Silvestre, Eugène Morand [after their stage play]: Rappelle-toi ces jours (Grisélidis). Michèle Command, Jean-Luc Viala, Brigitte Desnoues, Jean-Philippe Courtis, Patrick Fournillier, Orchestra of the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest [live Saint-Étienne 1992]
Sylvio Lazzari, Henry Bataille: Ferme tes yeux (La lépreuse). Madeleine Sibille, Orchestra conducted by Piero Coppola [1933]
Jules Massenet, Charles Grandmougin: Rêve infini! Divine extase! [Extase de la Vierge] (La Vierge). Françoise Pollet, Jacques Mercier, Orchestre National de l’Île de France [1996]
Georges Bizet, Jules Adnis, Jules-Henri de Saint-Georges [after Walter Scott]: Vive l’hiver (La jolie fille de Perth) [sung in English]. Mattiwilda Dobbs, Thomas Beecham, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra [live London 05.X.1956]