Good live 1976 performance from Nice with some authentic Fre
L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 01/16/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"SOURCE:
1976 live performance from Nice.
SOUND:
Opera d'Oro is, as always, economical with facts. It is my impression--and no more than that--that this is a transcribed mono broadcast. The principal singers are generally well-caught, although there are occasional moments of fade-away when performers enter into sonic dull spots. There are a few minor instances of overload. The orchestra and chorus sound fine, but a bit distant. On the whole, the sound of this recording is perfectly listenable, although it will never win any kind of medal for sound reproduction.
The not very sophisticated audience makes its presence known by some hacking and coughing and a tendency toward premature applause, but they are appreciative and the applause is deserved. Unless you are one of those thin-skinned souls who simply cannot abide sharing a sound-space, the audience presents no particular problem.
CAST:
Roméo - Alain Vanzo (tenor)
Juliette - Andrée Esposito (soprano)
Gertrude [Nurse] - Iris Plaque (mezzo soprano)
Mercutio - Jean Pierre Laffage (bass-baritone)
Frère Laurent - Ivan Saur (bass)
Stéphano - Claudine Ferment (soprano)
Tybalt - François Garcia (tenor)
Grégorio - Gerard Spagnol (baritone)
Paris - Alfred Novello
Duke of Verona - André Abello
CONDUCTOR:
Antonio de Almeida with Opera of Nice Orchestra and Chorus.
DOCUMENTATION:
No libretto. The usual brief and generic essay on Gounod and the opera followed by a short summary provided by the industrious Bill Parker. Track list that identifies the main singers and timings.
TEXT:
This live performance offers some insights into the gentle art of adjusting an operatic score for a live performance. "Roméo et Juliette" gets off to a strong start with the opening chorus--which here is an actual chorus involving the whole cast rather than just one man, as Shakespeare had it--embedded in the overture. From there, this live performance goes straight into fourteen minutes of ballet music. This seems logical enough, for the dancing presumably illustrates the hoopla at the Capulets' ball.
However, to anyone familiar with the 19th Century ways of the Paris Opera, the placement of these dances could not be more wrong. When the Paris Opera was the richest and grandest opera house of them all, composers were obliged to follow certain guidelines if they had any hope of seeing their works produced. The operas had to be grand, that is, consist of five acts. There had to be a ballet. And the ballet must never, never under any circumstance be in Act I. The Jockey Club, those rich and powerful admirers of daringly-clad ballerinas, were never so vulgar as to be in their seats at the beginning of any opera. Gounod knew this in his very bones. He'd no more have put dancers in the first act than he'd write a simple, blood-stirring, Verdi-like aria.
The 1995 recording with Alagna and Gheorghiu contains these dances, too-stretched to eighteen minutes. It deposits them in Act IV. They make no dramatic sense there, but the Jockey Club would undoubtedly have been appreciative. The Corelli and Freni recording of 1968 simply omits all the dances.
The differences among the three recordings are not limited to the dances. The dance-free 1968 studio recording lasts about two hours and twenty-six minutes. This live recording from 1976, dances included, is two hours and twenty-two minutes. The 1995 version bloats up to almost exactly three hours. That one is not only slower, it contains additional material. I can't tell you what it is because I have no reason to remember it and less inclination to track it through a long and not especially impressive recording.
COMMENTARY:
The plot of Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette" hews more closely to Shakespeare's text--in plot if not in poetry--than most of the other major operatic versions, certainly far closer than the two acknowledged masterpieces of the genre, Verdi's "Otello" and "Falstaff." The major difference from the Bard's version is a duet for the two young lovers within the tomb. It should be remembered that just such a meeting had been interpolated into the performing editions of the play for more than a century prior to the premiere of "Roméo et Juliette." (There was also a happy ending for "King Lear" and a dying speech for Macbeth--one can only shudder!)
In his own time, Charles Gounod enjoyed an extraordinarily high reputation that made him a peer of Wagner and placed him high above that uncultivated creator of barrel-organ tunes, Verdi. Looking back, it is now very difficult to imagine why this should have been. Gounod's two greatest operas, "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette" are simply sugary caricatures of their underlying originals. Gounod simply did not have it in him to capture greatness in music. That being said, however, it is clear that he was quite skillful at being tuneful and entertaining. "Roméo et Juliette" and "Faust," for all their airy sweetness, are among the very top operas on what might be called the B-list. With great singers, they can even take on the temporary semblance of A-list masterpieces. Of the two, my own preference is for "Roméo et Juliette," due to its skillful homage to Shakespeare's balcony scene in Act II and that perfect evocation of girlish delight, "Ah! Je vieux vivre," in Act I.
This is a live performance offering the superb and shamefully under-recorded tenor, Alain Vanzo (1928-2002), as Roméo. His Roméo is quite different from the current international standard, but it is for me unquestionably the most authentic and the most convincing on record.
Algerian-born Andrée Esposito (b. 1934) had a mostly French career. She debuted at the Paris Opera in 1959, where she sang Juliette, Violetta, Oscar and Gilda. For the Opéra-Comique, she sang Micaela, Mereille and Manon. As Juliette, her voice is a little heavier and older than the idealized voice I hear in my mind (a sort of Frenchified Erna Berger), but she is more authentic than Freni and just generally better than the grievously miscast Gheorghiu. She was clearly a hit with the audience that evening in Nice.
The rest of the cast is perfectly sound, if not especially memorable. Conductor Almeida keeps things moving along nicely. The Orchestra of the Nice Opera sounds competent enough and the chorus singing is better than I normally expect from a French troupe.
At low price, offering Vanzo, a generally good performance and some authentically French touches not easily found today, I think this recording deserves a solid four-plus stars--call it five.
LEC/AM"
Track Listings (18) - Disc #1